In the wake of the 2020 election, some Republicans took heart in the apparent shift of some Hispanic voters toward Trump relative to 2016. As I wrote elsewhere, the size of this shift is probably not large (bad exit poll data obscures this) and it still resulted in less Hispanic support than was earned by George W. Bush in 2004. Ethnic attrition also makes it difficult to judge the ethnic and racial support for presidential candidates as the descendants of immigrants, especially if born to an inter-ethnic or inter-racial couple, are much less likely to self-identify as Hispanic, Asian, or with other racial or ethnic origins. Thus, Trump’s support among second, third, or higher generation Hispanics could be even higher than the ethnic responses to exit polls suggest.
Another way of looking at the shift in support for Trump is to examine county level voting outcomes. Trump did win some counties in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas that he would not have won without a significant shift in the Hispanic vote in his direction. But Hispanics are only part of the immigrant population in the United States and, surprising to many, the majority of Hispanics living here are not immigrants, but native-born Americans. We should therefore expect that, over time, nativist policies and talking points would negatively affect Hispanic voters less and less as they and their descendants more fully assimilate into American culture and think of themselves primarily as patriotic Americans. There are also many immigrants from Asian, Africa, and Europe who were also affected by Trump’s immigration policies who get lost in the discussion over Hispanic voting patterns.
This blog post looks at the change in the county level vote share for President Trump from 2016 to the 2020 election, with a particular focus on the share of the county population who are naturalized citizens in all counties in the United States. Naturalized citizens are immigrants who have become American citizens and who can therefore vote in American elections. To the extent that immigrants would or could directly affect American elections, naturalized citizens are the voters who would do so. The 2020 county level election results data come from Fox News, the 2016 election results come from the MIT Election Data Lab, and the demographic data are from the 2014–2018 ACS 5‑year estimates.
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