The Hispanic Shift in 2024
The 2024 presidential election saw Hispanic voters make a dramatic shift to the right. The result was catastrophic for the Democrats.
Let's take a look at every county in the nation where a majority of the population is Hispanic. If we compare Hispanicity and rightward shift, we observe a positive correlation. That is, the more Hispanic a county is, the more it shifted rightward since 2016.
Now, let's put all of these data points on a map. In the visualization below, the size of the bubbles represents the size of the shift on the presidential level. Again, all of these counties are more than 50% Hispanic.
Starr County, Texas, sits along the nation's southern border and is almost entirely Hispanic. We can learn a lot about the movement of Hispanic voters just by observing this county. In 2016, Hillary Clinton got nearly 80% of the vote here; in 2024, Donald Trump won it by double digits.
So what did this amount to? Ultimately, there was a tangible shift in the electorate between 2016 and 2024, causing a key demographic of the Democratic coalition to turn to MAGA. The question now is if Hispanic people will continue shifting red or if they'll come home to Democrats.
