Why Trump Is Winning Over Nonwhite Voters

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Now, the 2024 election showed more and more black, Latino and Asian Americans turning to Trump. It’s been puzzling experts ever since. A professor at Yale may have an answer to the diversity emerging in the MAGA base. Daniel Martinez HoSang joins Michel Martin to explain the politics of the multiracial right.

 

MICHEL MARTIN: Thanks Christiane. Professor Daniel Martinez HoSang, thank you so much for talking with us.

 

DANIEL MARTINEZ HOSANG: Oh, such a pleasure to be here. I’m looking forward to our conversation today, Michel.

 

MARTIN: Yeah, likewise. So, you’ve been writing about race and politics for a long time now. A lot of us follow your work. You recently wrote a, a really eye-catching piece for the New York Times, where you explored the rise of a multiracial conservative movement in the United States. And this is something that people have talked about for a long time. And a lot of people kind of felt was overblown or they felt it was episodic, or they felt it was tied to, say, a specific movement. What do you think you add to the conversation with your piece?

 

MARTINEZ HOSANG: Part of what I was trying to say is that for this piece, we know that in the last election, the estimates are something like 45 to 50% of Latino voters cast their ballot for Trump, maybe 40% of Asian American voters. Black support for Trump is much less, but it, by some estimates, doubles from the previous election. And as you said, many people imagine, well, was there an ad there? Was it a candidate choice? Was it, you know, a different show someone — you know Kamala Harris should have gone on? 

And part of what I wanted to lay out in this piece is that this is a much longer and deeper and really more structural story. When people are talking about what led them to this place where they identify as conservative — they might support Trump, some even identify as kind of MAGA folks — there is a longer, longer story behind that. It’s not just tied to one election. And I think even folks who do not agree with these politics, the positions they hold, it is so important to understand those deeper experiences.

 

MARTIN: And one of the reasons that this stands out is that, you know, Barack Obama. I mean, the fact is, his first election, his second, put together this multiracial coalition. So obviously you’ve talked about the appeal among — we’re gonna talk more about this — the appeal of Donald Trump. But is it primarily the appeal of Donald Trump or the appeal of a movement? Or is it, or is it a kind of disillusionment, disdain with the Democrats? I guess the question is – did Republicans win or did the Democrats lose?

 

MARTINEZ HOSANG: Yeah, so, you know, it’s a little of both. And I think it’s so important, Michel, to go back to 2012, because at that moment, we’re talking about something like 80% of voters of color — Black, Asian-American, Latino voters — who cast a ballot are supporting Barack Obama. Even at that time, the Republican National — or the RNC says, we are in deep danger. We’ve lost two elections in a row. All our focus groups and polling are telling us we — it feels like we’re out of touch. Young voters, voters of color find us kind of stuck in the past. If we don’t kind of modernize our image, our accessibility, we are doomed. This is Republicans saying that. And I think –

 

MARTIN: They had, they had a whole project around this. It was led by Ed Gillespie, former Republican chief of staff. It was, what did they have a name for it, like an autopsy report?

 

MARTINEZ HOSANG: It was the autopsy report – 

 

MARTIN: Autopsy. Which was kind of dire, but

 

MARTINEZ HOSANG: <Laugh>. But I just, you know, this is not that long ago. 

 

MARTIN: Right –

 

MARTINEZ HOSANG: This is less than 15 years ago. And they’re saying like, we are doomed politically. And I think that was the sensibility, which is that the kind of demography is destiny. The electorate continues to change, and that can only benefit in a partisan way, the Democrats. And so I think – 

 

MARTIN: What happened?

 

MARTINEZ HOSANG: Well, yes. So af — you know, I mentioned in the piece like — Obama’s inauguration, because the theme in 2012, it was all about optimism. Our best days are in front of us. We have so much, so much to look forward to and give. But, you know, scratch the surface there, the foreclosure and housing crisis, which had been underway for three or four years, it devastated communities of color in even more dramatic ways than you know, even kind of white working class and conservative voters. The opioid and addiction and healthcare crisis that started in some parts of the country within four years was in every city. So you just saw — and then we have COVID. 

 

So there was some — you know, voters kept describing to me, it’s not that I was opposed to the soaring rhetoric and the symbolism, I was drawn to that. A good number of folks I interviewed who were on the right today said, I voted for Obama. Several said, I volunteered for his campaign. I was so excited. But in the next four years, I did not see anything change. And my sense of the disconnect between the talk and the action in my own neighborhood grew, and grew, and grew. And they — and so many people noted that.

 

MARTIN: One of the people you interviewed, Sam Gonzales, identifies as a gay Latino man. And he had voted Democrat before. But here’s again, why this is so fascinating, because so many people identify Donald Trump in particular, and the sort of Trumpism or the MAGA movement as being anti-Latino, hostile to immigrants, and increasingly hostile to gays. Transgender people who are part of the LGBTQ movement. So what happened, what, what’s Sam Gonzales’ story? What was the appeal for him?

 

MARTINEZ HOSANG: So this is the Rio Grande Valley, south Texas, which for generations had been just a staunchly and reliably Democratic, largely Latino, Mexican-American voting base. And part of what I, you know, traced out is that wasn’t just, you know, their kind of independent attitudes or preferences. There was real organization there. There’s, you know, unions and civic organizations and local democratic parties and radio stations. And so many people said, that’s why, for just generations, we never thought about Republicans. 

 

I just, it’s very important to understand. After 2012, the Right started to pick up on new opportunities in these communities. They started sending organizers. They started knocking on doors. The Koch network, you know, libertarian network created this Libre initiative to start connecting with people. So that sense that people have no other alternatives, which for generations had been true, wasn’t true. 

 

The second thing is with someone like Sam, part of what he said is like ‘I am a proud gay man. I’m proudly Latino. But that doesn’t mean that that’s my only way that I think about myself politically.’ He says, ‘I’m also Christian. That also shapes how I think about gender, how I think about religion and faith.’ And his sense was, there’s, there’s assumptions among the Democrats that if you just look at him and say, he’s a gay Latino man, these are the policy preferences. What Sam is describing is true for many more people than we acknowledge. We sometimes talk about it now as having heterodox politics, mixing and matching around immigration, around gender, around work, around security, et cetera. They don’t just neatly fall into left-right categorizations.

 

MARTIN: They identify the attraction of some of these, these voters to Donald Trump because of sexism. He presents as a very sort of traditional male —I’m rich, I’m loud, I’m unapologetic, you know, I do what I want. And some people sort of identify the appeal to some, particularly Black men, as being part of that. What did you find in your reporting?

 

MARTINEZ HOSANG: I mean, we certainly cannot underestimate the role of patriarchy, gender politics, and attraction to that. I, I wouldn’t, you know, dismiss it in any way. I will say though, that I don’t think that explains all or even most of what we’re seeing. Many of the folks I talked to again, talked about, you know, in a place like Milwaukee where schools, public funding access to services, they’ve just been decimated across the last two decades. THAT’s what people were repeatedly talking about. Like my neighborhood, you know, the sense of, you know, safety, other kinds of things. And for them, in part, just of the kind of two party system and how it’s often Democratic leaders who have had, you know, are in charge of governance of multiracial cities, the blame for that is gonna be put at the feet of the Democrats. They’re saying, we’ve tried, we’ve tried to redress, and nothing seems to change. And again, in a two party system, this is the only alternative.

 

MARTIN: How do they explain the fact that the way that Donald Trump expresses himself, often people experience as anti-blackness? I’m just curious, like how some of the people you talk to, how do they deal with that? How do they think about that? 

 

MARTINEZ HOSANG: Yeah. I mean, first I just wanna say, just to acknowledge, right? Like Donald Trump, he insulted and denigrated, you know, civil rights icon, John Lewis, he talked about a city like Baltimore as kind of broken, you know, trash. You know, he used profanity to talk about African countries and immigrants. 

 

MARTIN: Not to mention, the first campaign talking about immigrants from— you know, Mexico in particular, Latin America in general, as being, you know, criminals as a group –

 

MARTINEZ HOSANG: Criminals and predators, et cetera. Yeah.

 

MARTIN: They’re not sending our best. They’re not sending their best, you know.

 

MARTINEZ HOSANG: And then, you know, the Springfield, Ohio, and the eating cats, and, right? It’s just never ending. But I’ll say in these conversations, the voters that I talk to, how they would respond, and just to imagine how they’d respond to this important question would say, I don’t take that seriously. I don’t think he’s, like — it’s being distorted and misrepresented. They’re trying to use it to score political points. And I actually don’t really care about that kind of back and forth. So they say it’s, to me, it’s a little bit of theater and performance. I’m focused on like, what’s gonna make a change. 

 

The other thing is many people said, look, as a Democrat, I’ve also tolerated a lot of, from their perception, liberal racism from Democrats that they find condescending and patronizing. So the idea that once you get a taste of how much they dislike you, you’ll realize, you know something, right? I think Black voters especially have long navigated a Democratic party that has been also ambivalent about them and has shown, you know, remorse and distaste and tolerated conditions that didn’t honor their dignity. So, you know, I, I, people might also just stay there in those complex ways and try to see what still might be possible versus saying, gosh, this was all a — I’ve been hoodwinked, I’m gonna go back to some other place where, where people will honor me.

 

I talked to most of these folks after inauguration, in those first 90 days, when, remember Michel, there was just these dramatic changes, department of education, <laugh>, right? All these agencies shut down. And I said like, well, is this what you wanted? And most, almost every person said, he’s doing what he said he would, which is, he’s an outsider. He’s disrupting the status quo. He’s rooting out the, the perceived corruption, et cetera. 

 

So I just think that — and just as the last thing I’ll say, do you remember, right, like the week before the election, the, there was a Trump rally in Madison Square Garden, a comment said, you know, made this comment about Puerto Rico as comparing it to garbage. You know, immediately people said, well, there goes to support among Puerto Rican voters. But the next day, I was talking to a journalist in Pennsylvania, and he’s saying, there’s tons of Puerto Rican flags here. People continue to support it. So part of what they think is, it’s both not serious. He’s not really talking about me. And this is just kind of what his opponents are doing to try to discredit him.

 

MARTIN: What about Asian American voters, talk about that.

 

MARTINEZ HOSANG: Yeah, I mean, so like Latino voters, this is a really, really diverse group. Lots of different experiences. The dramatic growth in the Asian American electorate also means, again, lots of different occupations and things that are shaping — you know, it’s not just about education or access to the Ivy Leagues. There’s many things. 

 

I talked to a group of mostly Chinese American voters in San Francisco. What was really foremost on their mind, especially those who had like very small mom and pop shops, was a sense of like, order and safety. And they run on very, very small margins. Could they open their store so that they could just make enough to pay the rent? And San Francisco as a city, like many others, has a profound housing affordability crisis. It has an addiction crisis that’s just spilled everywhere. So there’s a sense that there’s these colossal, colossal problems, and there’s very, very few Republicans who are representing those voters. So again, it’s Democrats who get caught with the kind of, like, you haven’t done anything about it. And that’s partly what for a lot of those voters, it’s actually not their experiences with communism or authoritarianism in their home countries. 

 

MARTIN: It’s local. 

 

MARTINEZ HOSANG: It’s wanting to fix things. Yeah, it’s local. 

 

MARTIN: So the question I have is that, I take your point that a lot of the people you interviewed, they wanna change. They’re tired of the status quo, and they wanna change. And Trump represents change. What happens if he doesn’t deliver?

 

MARTINEZ HOSANG: Yeah, I mean, I’ll just say two things there. One is I think that there’s a whole set of voters who don’t wake up every morning thinking about what the legislation is, what its impact was, et cetera. And so they’re not gonna see it in a kind of cost benefit way. And Trump is so skilled at continually producing, you know, demons, people who are culpable, et cetera. So as long as that churn kind of keeps going, I think he feels like even in a place where he hasn’t delivered promises about everything that’s gonna change, he still benefits. 

 

The other thing, part of this work, we’ve gone to a lot of right wing conferences, including this group Turning Point USA has a big conference in Phoenix every year. You’ll see them very accurately talking about problems and challenges in people’s lives. You will rarely hear them talk about solutions. And I think it’s because they’ve picked up on something. People are exhausted, they’re lonely and isolated. They want some acknowledgement that that’s a real feeling. Their sense that you can actually do something is an open question. And that’s the space they’re kind of inhabiting, if that makes sense. 

 

MARTIN: I mean, there, there used to be a kind of a broad sense of identity among certain groups, is there a bigger issue around identity with group — people of color in this country where that just isn’t as foregrounded in their lives? 

 

MARTINEZ HOSANG: Yeah. I think what’s happened is precisely what you’re saying. I would say for a a, a generation of Latino voters, that was often true as well. Even if I’m a citizen, I’m not from a mixed-status household. If they’re talking about them, they’re talking about all of us. There was a really important poll done by the New York Times and Sienna College in the fall, and it asked all these Latino voters, when Donald Trump is talking about immigrants, do you think he’s talking about you? A majority said, no, he’s not talking about me. And so I think that sense of both, you’re talking about the kind of lumping, but there’s also that splitting, right? There’s a them and an us within all of these communities. 

 

And I think that’s partly what he’s been effective at speaking to. And he will say, I believe in you. I believe in your work ethic, your faith, your ability, you know, your love for family. That’s who I believe in all these other corrupt forces. They don’t believe in you. I believe in you. So I — that’s the other thing I’ve seen is he’s — so it’s not a de-emphasizing of identity or even cultural pride.

 

MARTIN: On the other hand, we’ve seen this, for example, mass deportation scheme ensnaring people who A) are not immigrants, some who are citizens. Some who have been here for decades. And so the question I have is, conversely, could the way President Trump is going about implementing some of these policies, even though they were attractive to voters be causing buyer’s remorse particularly among some of these people who are newly part of this coalition. 

 

MARTINEZ HOSANG: Yeah. I think there’s no doubt, and I think it’s reflected in more recent polling among Latino Trump supporters, that it has dampened and — their enthusiasm and support. And it’s not in line with their understanding of what a fair immigration enforcement is. So absolutely. But we also can’t underestimate some sense that there are a significant number of folks who identify as immigrants, immigrant families, who also you know, are persuaded by robust enforcement practices. And the Republicans are trying to find what that line is. But the idea that just the, the specter and the scare of the, these raids alone will move everyone back. I think it — on the ground, it’s gonna be more complex.

 

MARTIN: Is there any hope for Democrats? 

 

MARTINEZ HOSANG: I actually think it’s some ways, these people that move to the right, they actually have some hope. They’re not the folks who are just all together withdrawing. They’re actually wondering like, well, maybe there is some other possibility here. 

 

So I, that’s what I found I don’t know, encouraging is that people want that. They want dignity for themselves. I actually didn’t hear a lot of people just rehashing the same attacks on neighbors. And there, you kind of hear that from the stage, but I don’t think that’s the world people wanna live in. And I think the rebuilding part, process happens at the local level when people can kind of see that, that trust in action. It’s not just about drafting a new candidate or figuring out one new podcaster to fix this. It’s really doing what the generation before did, building this local infrastructure of connection and hope and possibility and love that people feel connected to. That’s where I think there’s real opportunity.

 

MARTIN: Professor Daniel Martinez HoSang, thank you so much for speaking with us.

 

MARTINEZ HOSANG: Thanks, Michel. Such a delight to talk to you.