SHOCK update UPENDS midterms for Trump

[0:00] The story of this election cycle is going to be the shift in Latino voters. [0:04] I'm joined now by author of The Latino Century and my go-to for all things Latino voters, Mike Madrid. [0:10] Mike, thanks for taking the time. [0:11] Brian, it's always great to be with you. Thanks for having me. [0:13] So I want to start first and foremost with a recent post made by the White House just a couple of days before Halloween, [0:20] but also a couple of days before the election. [0:23] I'm going to put it right here on the screen. [0:25] Spooky season is here and there is a picture engraved into the pumpkin of a sombrero. [0:31] So obviously a shot at, you know, basically the entire Latino population. [0:36] Can I get your reaction first and foremost to the strategy behind a move like this by the White House? [0:43] This White House has always pursued a strategy of using the racism to hide their incompetence. [0:48] And I'm not going to say that there aren't times where it hasn't worked. [0:51] I mean, remember in the waning days of the 24 election, the Puerto Rico being a floating island of garbage seemed to get a lot of people off their heels and thinking this was going to upset the apple cart. [1:01] And he went on to win a historic share of the Latino vote. [1:04] This is clearly a different moment. [1:05] The polling, the data, all of all of the election results or early vote returns are showing a decidedly different electorate. [1:12] So he's really playing with with fire here on this one. [1:14] I'm going to challenge you on that and ask if it didn't matter when I think it was Tony, Tony Hinchcliffe made that joke in, you know, just days before the 2024 election. [1:25] And I think the left has a propensity to to maybe over inflate the significance of issues that might insult people, but not but might not impact people or affect people. [1:37] Is that not the same thing happening here? [1:39] We're sure you've got the White House that makes their their, you know, these dumb shots or swipes at giant swaths of the population. [1:47] But is it going to have an impact because, you know, at the end of the day, this is just par for the course and Trump's won before. [1:55] Brian, that's an excellent question. [1:56] It's the exact right question to be asking. [1:59] Yes, sometimes the left will take the bait. [2:02] That's why they do this. [2:04] They're trying to get a different narrative set. [2:06] They're trying to get people upset about things. [2:07] This is the owning the lib strategy. [2:09] But there is one big, big difference between now and 2024. [2:13] They're in control of this economy. [2:15] They're the ones that are responsible. [2:17] So, yes, there's a lot of Latinos that aren't going to be on social media. [2:21] They aren't going to see this pumpkin carving. [2:22] They aren't going to see this latest display of racism. [2:25] But they are paying higher gas at the pump. [2:27] They are paying higher food prices. [2:28] They are paying higher rent. [2:30] And they are seeing an economy slipping away from them and drowning day by day. [2:34] And they blame Donald Trump with 100 percent certainty. [2:38] That's the difference. [2:39] That's why this is not likely to work. [2:41] And although we'd all, I think, like to have better sensibilities and should about the way we treat our fellow human [2:47] beings, the reality is there's a lot of people struggling with this. [2:50] They are a lot of people struggling in this economy. [2:53] And it has gotten far, far worse over the past couple of years than when a lot of them supported Donald Trump being elected president. [3:00] All right. [3:01] So let's talk about the electoral impacts here. [3:05] Talk to me about what this map is looking like, because, you know, you and I spoke just a few months back when we were seeing some of these special elections. [3:14] We spoke in the off year elections and we were seeing pretty massive swings among the Latino population, certainly bigger than any other demographic group that we had been tracking. [3:24] You know, in some instances, it was 20, 30, 40 point swings to the left. [3:30] Are we seeing those those numbers hold up as people are actually casting their ballots and as we're seeing these final polls before Election Day? [3:37] I'm impressed by your memory of remembering going back to all those election cycles, Brian. [3:42] So good work there. [3:43] Yeah. [3:44] Look, Latinos are kind of emerging as this sort of last real swing voter and they're not small marginal swings. [3:50] They're massive. [3:51] They're tectonic shifts. [3:52] We're going through basically what I would describe as a dealignment, this shift away from both parties. [3:57] And the reason why Trump and the Republicans are particularly susceptible right now is for the exact same reasons that Kamala Harris lost these voters in 2024, which is the economy, the economy and the economy. [4:09] Except now, as we just mentioned, they blame these voters. [4:11] But yes, what we are seeing is not only these very significant 20 point shifts, these massive turnout numbers, just just explosive turnout numbers in places like Texas, where already we have seen more Latino voters banked in early voting, Brian, than voted in the entirety of the last midterm elections. [4:30] I have never seen that before because it has never happened before. [4:34] And we can speculate as to what that means. [4:36] But my strong suspicion is this is a very anti incumbent, very anti Trump moment, very anti perhaps generational. [4:44] We'll see if that plays out. [4:45] But remember, in the last times we spoke, when we were seeing these huge shifts in Passaic County, New Jersey, in Manassas and Virginia, there was a tremendous undercounting of these voters that was not reflected in the polling. [5:00] That's why Mikey Sherrill won by five to six points more than the averages. [5:03] That's why Spanberger, everybody was saying this is a 50 50 race, almost wins by double digits. [5:08] Who is showing up matters. [5:10] And the people that are showing up are very young, very low propensity voters. [5:15] Many of these, one third of them have no vote history at all. [5:18] Brian, again, I have never seen Latinos outpacing black and white voters, certainly not beginning with the lowest of low propensity. [5:26] That strongly suggests that the wave of this turnout is going to get bigger as higher propensity, more tuned in voters show up to vote. [5:34] And I think we are on the cusp of seeing something quite significant here. [5:37] So talk to me about some specific places that you're tracking as it relates to the Latino population having a big impact on the upcoming election. [5:46] It's tough because it's everywhere. [5:48] But let me be as specific as I can to be the most emblematic. [5:51] Texas 15, I think, as everyone's talking about, this is one of the new dummy mander districts that Republicans drew to protect Monica de la Cruz and create a Trump plus 15 district in South Texas with this Hispanic shift that happened in 2024. [6:06] Bobby Polito, I think, is going to win by double digits. [6:09] Let me say that again. [6:11] The Trump plus 15, 12, 18 district. [6:15] The Democrat is likely to win by double digits. [6:18] That would be a 30, 25, 30 point shift in voting preferences in that area. [6:23] That's going to happen throughout South Texas. [6:26] From El Paso, if you cut across down to Corpus Christi, everything below that. [6:30] San Antonio, McAllen, Brownsville, that entire region is going to see probably a 20 point shift. [6:38] Does it get back to Obama levels? [6:40] Probably not. [6:41] Does it need to? [6:42] No, it doesn't. [6:43] To have this be an earthquake in changing the control of Congress, the Republican dummy mander of creating five districts, at least three of those that they carved out for Republicans will go to Democrats, possibly all five. [6:56] I'm also looking at the great Central Valley of California, Bakersfield, where Randy Villegas, endorsed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and had Bernie Sanders come visit him just a couple of weeks ago. [7:08] I was there for the rally. [7:09] It's very likely to beat incumbent Republican David Valadeo in a seat that has always escaped the Democrats. [7:16] Randy is from the progressive wing of the party and will be the first Hispanic member of Congress to represent the great Central Valley of California. [7:23] But, Brian, it's also happening in Ohio, where we're seeing 329 percent increases in Hispanic precinct votes turnout. [7:31] We're seeing it in Georgia. [7:32] We're seeing it in Kansas, where there might be a potential pickup on the Senate side with Democrats, in large part because the five to seven percent of Latinos that will comprise the electorate in Kansas are going to be breaking so decidedly away from the Republicans. [7:47] So the breadth of this, again, somebody who's been studying this for 35 years, I've never seen anything like the size, the scope, the depth of what is likely to be happening here. [7:56] But I'm curious what's moving the Latino population. [8:00] And the reason I ask that is because, you know, I think the the the outdated way to look at this was, OK, it was just politicians would talk to the Latino population specifically about immigration. [8:12] And as the Latino population continued to become more and more integrated into American society, it became less about immigration and more about the issues that impacted non-Latino voters, namely the economy, as you just named. [8:24] And so, you know, if if is is there anything that that pushes that community differently or or are they basically moving in alignment with all non-Latino voters, which is to say, if inflation is a big issue among non-Latinos, it's going to be the principal driver among Latinos. [8:42] If, you know, ICE, for example, is a big driver among non-Latinos, it's going to be basically correlated for non-Latino voters versus along with Latino voters. [8:52] Is that what we're seeing now? Like, has the distinction between non-Latino and Latino voters kind of just faded in, faded away? [9:00] And now basically what moves all voters is a little bit more, I guess, monolithic. [9:06] You're asking the the one of the most brilliant questions of this moment in American politics. [9:10] And it is the question that it's going to be both parties are going to grapple with. [9:15] But you're going to see on full display in the Democratic primary starting Wednesday after the elections. [9:19] Let me explain why. [9:21] What we have been witnessing over the course of the past couple of decades is the movement of Latino voters away from racial and ethnic identity issues and to economic pocketbook issues. [9:31] This is becoming very much an economic pocketbook voters doesn't mean the ice raid crackdowns, the mass deportations, the violence and terror on our streets isn't real. [9:40] It is. But by a three to one margin, Latinos are saying it's the economy, it's affordability. [9:47] It's the inability to provide a sustainable living for my family that is driving my voting decisions. [9:51] So both can be true. But overwhelmingly, this is about the economy. [9:56] Again, Latinos are moving from a racial and ethnic voter to an economic voter, especially as so many, over 80 percent of new registrants are U.S. born. [10:05] That's significant. That leads to the next question. [10:08] Well, then what's the difference between Latino voters and everybody else? [10:12] Here's the answer. And here's how the Democrats can crack the code now that they've been giving a second chance to own these voters and get them back. [10:18] The number one demographic that is affected by the price of gasoline are Latino men under 30. [10:25] If that demographic sounds familiar, it's because it is the group that moved the most towards Donald Trump and is positioned to move right back. [10:33] This is a demographic that both parties have struggled with mightily because they are the backbone of the blue collar working class. [10:40] So as the Democratic Party starts to figure out what positions it wants to take as they work towards nominating a presidential candidate, [10:47] that blue collar working class voter is going to be far more price sensitive, along with all Latinos, because they're younger, they're poor, they're less college educated. [10:58] All three demographic trends point in a different direction from where the Democratic Party has been heading as it's consolidated, wealthier, white, more college educated voters talking more about cultural issues. [11:10] As they get back to winning these voters by a big number on Tuesday, the way to hold them and not return the mistake that the Republicans just made by believing they're naturally a part of their coalition is by focusing on blue collar economic issues, those bread and butter issues. [11:25] If they can do that, they can absolutely recenter and pull these voters back for a generation and dominate U.S. politics for a decade or more going forward. [11:33] Last question here, Mike, you know, I feel like once you had a big swath of Latino population that entered into the Republican coalition, maybe at least rhetorically and at least in the beginning, it might have altered how the Republican Party presented itself [11:55] and might have softened some of the harder edges in terms of what they were willing to say. [12:00] I mean, remember, this is Trump is somebody who ran in 2016 and the first words out of his mouth when when when when he was running were that, you know, Mexicans were were rapists and and murderers and that, you know, they were coming into this country to to rape your wives and sell drugs to your kids. [12:17] That was like that was the beginning, then a giant swath of the Latino population moved over and perhaps it had some impact. [12:24] Is there some concern that as they lose giant swaths of this population again, that it it reverses that trend? [12:33] And now you have a party that is even more overtly white nationalist than than the MAGA Republican Party is right now. [12:42] Yes, for sure. That's been the trajectory I've seen the Republican Party going down for 30 years and they've never made the adjustment. [12:49] And as the party shrinks along with the demography of who they're constructed of, it gets more intense. [12:55] They get more nativist, they get more racist overtly. [12:58] That's what Donald Trump is a sign of. [13:00] Donald Trump is not a new thing other than he is newly emboldened to be saying what people quietly think. [13:08] Let me give you one one data point to bring this home. [13:10] California, where we're from, the largest Latino state by by a wide stretch, is 35 percent white. [13:17] But the California Republican Party is over 80 percent white by registration. [13:21] If that's not racial identity politics, I don't know what is. [13:25] So that racial correlation is central to the very existence of the GOP. [13:30] And even if those were like those that were enlightened enough wanted to broaden the base of it, they're having a hell of a difficult time because the only thing left that is animating the party is this regressive looking back, making America great again, this mythological white era where they were in charge of everything. [13:48] And they don't like what's happening demographically. [13:50] So, yes, the likelihood of it getting worse is greater than it getting better because they're losing and alienating the very voices that can moderate the party. [14:00] But they've been doing it for 30 years, Brian. [14:02] Even when they have had this multiracial coalition, even when Donald Trump and Republicans got 50 percent, 48 percent of the voters just two years ago, not only did they not moderate, they double, triple, quadruple down on the nativist sentiment. [14:16] I just don't think they can help themselves. [14:18] I completely agree. I think that's perfectly put. I mean, you've got J.D. Vance coming out on stage, like in public and saying it's OK to be white. [14:25] I mean, like if you can't read between the lines in terms of what he's trying to say there. [14:30] And that was that was vice president who benefited from from, again, huge swaths of the Latino population voting for them. [14:37] So, Mike, it's always so great to hear your take on things. [14:41] Where can folks who are watching and listening right now hear and see more from you? [14:45] I can follow me on YouTube is where I talk about these topics regularly and look at the early voting data. [14:50] I can also be found on The Great Transformation is the name of my sub stack. [14:54] Brian, I appreciate you, the fierce work that you're doing out there. You're a warrior. Appreciate you, Mike. [14:58] I appreciate it. Thanks.