President-elect Donald Trump won a historic victory in a border county with a 97% Hispanic population on Tuesday night — ending a Democratic voting streak that began in 1896.
Trump’s take over of the blue bastion was made evident Wednesday morning as he won Starr County with more than 57% of the vote — the first time a Republican has claimed the border community in 128 years.
The outcome reveals the surge in popularity Trump has received from Latino voters, especially among men, with issues around the border and illegal immigration.
While exit polls suggest that Harris won around 53% of the overall Latino vote in Texas, 54% of Latino men said they supported Trump — a dramatic swing from 36% four years ago.
Harris also appeared to lose ground in the state with Latino woman, with only 61% saying they supported her, down 8 points from Biden in 2020.
Trump also dramatically improved his support among Latino voters nationwide since the 2020 election — up 8 percentage points with Latino men and 6 points with Latino women, according to Fox News Voter Analysis exit polling.
Starr County, with a population of nearly 66,000 people, had served as a key support for Democrats, with Biden winning the county in 2020 with 52% of the vote, and Hillary Clinton with 79% in 2016.
Despite being in a red state, the county has the longest Democratic voting streak of anywhere in the US, according to the San Antonio Express-News.
Along with Starr County, Trump is poised to take Cameron County, Hidalgo County and Webb County, all south Texas districts that Clinton and Biden had secured by double digits.
Republican Reps. Monica De La Cruz and Tony Gonzales also secured easy victories in the districts, a crushing blow to Democrats who had hoped the races would be competitive.
The shift in south Texas came as the border and illegal immigration rose as one of the top concerns in America since President Joe Biden took office in 2020.
The administration saw its biggest surge last year after the Trump-era Title 42 ended, with more than 1 million people rushing to the border to try to enter within the span of a few months.
Texas quickly became overwhelmed with the massive influx, which spread to other states after Gov. Greg Abbott began bussing thousands of migrants to so-called sanctuary cities across the US.
Trump made illegal immigration one of the biggest platforms of his campaign, vowing to make the border his first priority and deport millions of undocumented immigrants once he returns to the White House.
With Post wires