For years, Democrats believed immigration was their wedge issue with Hispanic voters and leniency would win them over.
Former President Donald Trump is banking on Hispanics being just as upset over the border, and took his message directly to them on Tuesday, saying that the border chaos under President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris is going to be the deciding issue in the Nov. 5 election.
“The economy is bad, and it is made really bad by the horrible inflation, but I really think the biggest problem this country has is what they allowed to happen to us on the border,” Mr. Trump said Tuesday at a forum with Latino supporters in Miami. “I think it is the single biggest problem.”
He’s been hitting this note regularly on the campaign trail.
At a town hall event last week, Mr. Trump said the “people that are most against” the influx of illegal migrants are “the Hispanic people.”
Mr. Trump’s appeal to Hispanic voters has worked and, according to polls, has eaten into or even erased Democrats’ advantage.
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Mr. Trump has made the border issue a catchall for his campaign. He ties it to challenges related to violent “migrant crime,” stagnant wages and unemployment in Black and Hispanic communities.
He says he wants people to come into the country “legally” and blames Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris for making a mess of the secure border they inherited.
For his supporters, the border symbolizes everything wrong with the Biden-Harris era. They see it as an ideological malpractice that allowed millions of people to enter the country, violating the law.
Mr. Trump’s eagerness to discuss the issue in front of whatever audience he is speaking to underscores the lengths to which he has altered the national debate — and the Republican Party — since crashing onto the political scene nearly a decade ago.
The shifting politics on the border has led Ms. Harris to attempt to rewrite her history on immigration and intensify her targeting of Hispanic male voters.
She recently made her second visit to the border, where she praised Border Patrol agents and promised to get them reinforcements.
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In an interview with Telemundo on Tuesday, Ms. Harris planned to focus on her vision for helping Latino men achieve the American Dream. The plan included increasing apprenticeships and making federal jobs more accessible to people without a college degree, doubling the number of first-time Latino homebuyers and providing forgivable loans worth up to $20,000 each to 1 million small businesses.
“As President, Kamala Harris will genuinely invest in our future and ensure everyone has a fair shot at achieving their American Dream,” Sen. Alex Padilla, a member of Harris’s national advisory board, said in a press statement. “The choice in this election couldn’t be more clear: Kamala Harris will include the Latino community in the success and well-being of our country, while Donald Trump is shamelessly running to cut taxes for corporations, raise health care and grocery costs, and demonize our community.”
Alfonso Aguilar, director of Hispanic Engagement at the American Principles Project, who attended the Trump event Tuesday, said Mr. Trump has “turned the tables” on Democrats.
“Hispanics are saying, ‘We are for deportations,’” he said. “I go back ten years ago when he came down the stairs at Trump Tower and talked about deporting people — imagine what the reaction was — it was scandalous.”
“Now, we are seeing Hispanics saying, ‘We agree with you,’” he said.
“The perspective of Hispanic voters has changed, and now they see the issue as other Americans do. What is the impact on crime?” Mr. Aguilar said. “What is the effect of taking resources from other citizens? They start voting and behaving politically like average American voters.”
Mr. Trump also courted Latino voters last week at a Univision town hall. He promised to usher in a new era of economic prosperity for Hispanic voters, driving down the cost of groceries, energy and housing.
“We had the greatest economy in the history of our country,” Mr. Trump said. “Now we have a lousy economy primarily because of inflation. So we’re going to get rid of the inflation. We are going to drill baby drill.”
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said the reality is that “law-abiding Hispanics care more about having a prosperous future for themselves and their children than they do about people who are in this country illegally.”
“So I think there’s a misperception that all they care about is, you know, immigration,” Mr. Suarez said on CNN.
He said Mr. Trump has “listened better” to Hispanic voters than Ms. Harris.
“He’s tailored his policies specifically to meet the needs of the diverse Hispanic communities,” he said. “They’re not monolithic. They’re not the same. Every community needs a different approach.”
That poses a challenge for Ms. Harris and Democrats.
They have relied on the support of Hispanic voters to help them build winning coalitions in the modern era of presidential races. One school of thought was that demographics were destiny.
However, a USA Today/Suffolk University survey found Ms. Harris losing ground with Latino voters this week. She now trails Mr. Trump by a 49% to 38% margin among this segment of the electorate.
“He may not be ahead by 11 points, but even if they are tied at the national level, that is remarkable,” Mr. Aguilar said. “Democrats are scratching their heads.”
Mr. Trump won 28% of the Latino vote in 2016 and climbed to 32% in 2020, compared to President Biden, who pulled in 65%.
George W. Bush set the bar for Republicans in 2004, capturing over 40% of the Latino vote.
Hispanics are expected to contribute about 15% of the vote nationally, and that pool widens in the Latino-heavy battleground states of Arizona and Nevada. They also could help tip the scales in Georgia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.