Trump gains with Latino voters driven by rural support

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Published:
November 8, 2020

“Texas Republicans have a history of having an okay relationship with Latinos,” said Victoria DeFrancesco Soto, a political scientist at the University of Texas’s Lyndon Johnson School of Public Affairs. 

Trump also took advantage of an effort by Texas Republicans to break the power of Democratic political machines in South Texas. The Republican-led legislature passed a measure ending straight-ticket voting in Texas, a means of casting ballots disproportionately favored by Latino voters.

“There was no real grassroots campaigning because of the pandemic,” Soto said. “It was very hard to introduce yourself in the middle of a pandemic, in an area that’s more rural, that’s more traditional, where you need more old-school grassroots politics.”

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