The border city where Trump is gaining Latino voters
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 30 October 2024
⏱️ 35 minutes
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Summary
San Luis, Arizona, has a population of around 40,000 people. Most still vote for Democrats, if they vote. But in the 2020 presidential election, Democrats saw their advantage drop by 36 percentage points here since 2016.
This swing is one indicator of the inroads Republicans have made in recent years in traditional Democratic strongholds, gains that former president Donald Trump hopes will propel him back into the White House. That strategy relies on winning over young, non-college-educated men.
We meet a family in San Luis, where debates over whom to vote for dominate the dinner conversation, and we travel to other key swing states where Latino men are aligning with the GOP to better understand this emerging political trend.
Host Martine Powers speaks with voting reporter Sabrina Rodriguez about her reporting on Latino communities in battleground states, and they also break down the fallout from racist and sexist remarks at a recent Trump rally in New York City.
Today’s show was produced by Laura Benshoff, with help from Sabby Robinson. It was mixed by Sam Bair. It was edited by Monica Campbell, with help from Maggie Penman and Reena Flores. Thanks to Nick Baumann.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In these final days before the election, the battle for the White House comes down to |
| 0:06.4 | winning over slices of voters in key swing states. |
| 0:11.0 | One of my most recent travels was to San Luis, Arizona right along the US-Mexico border. |
| 0:17.1 | It's majority Latino. |
| 0:18.5 | I mean, it's 90% Latino and 90% non-college educated. |
| 0:23.0 | Sabrina Rodriguez reports on voters for the post. |
| 0:26.0 | She's been talking to people across the country about the election, |
| 0:30.0 | including many Latinos. |
| 0:32.0 | And San Luis stands out to her. election, including many Latinos. |
| 0:32.8 | And San Luis stands out to her. |
| 0:35.4 | You know, we talk so much about if Latino voters are shifting to the right. |
| 0:39.6 | We talk so much about the divide and education that we've seen in polling this year and we came across |
| 0:45.7 | San Luis Arizona where no other city in the country moved more towards Donald Trump in 2020. This is according to deep analysis by our colleagues at the post. |
| 0:57.0 | San Luis is still majority Democratic. |
| 1:00.0 | There are plenty of die-hard Democrats there, like Lizette Servin. |
| 1:04.4 | What I'm already consider myself a Democrat, I don't think that would ever be a Republican. |
| 1:09.7 | I believe in democracy, doing things right. |
| 1:12.1 | Lizette is running for city council as a Democrat. |
| 1:16.0 | When Sabrina met her, Liseette was at a noisy cafe, |
| 1:19.0 | about to go out canvassing for herself and other local candidates. |
| 1:24.2 | And you know she was there working the room with all the different democratic organizers, you know, |
| 1:29.2 | putting together packets of flyers for other local candidates. But Lizette is seeing this shift |
... |
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