Hispanic voters rallied to Donald Trump. Here’s why.

Hispanics put Donald Trump over the edge in Miami-Dade.

From Pennsylvania to Florida to Texas, areas with high numbers of Hispanics often had little in common on Election Day other than backing Republican Donald Trump over Democrat Kamala Harris for president.

Trump, the president-elect, made inroads in heavily Puerto Rican areas of eastern Pennsylvania where the vice president spent the last full day of her campaign. Trump turned South Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, a decadeslong Democratic stronghold populated both by newer immigrants and Tejanos who trace their roots in the state for several generations.

He also improved his standing with Hispanic voters along Florida’s Interstate 4 corridor linking the Tampa Bay area — home to people of Cuban, Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, Colombian and Puerto Rican origin — with Orlando, where Puerto Ricans make up about 43% of the local Hispanic population. Trump was the first Republican since 1988 to win Miami-Dade County, home to a sizable Cuban population and the country’s metropolitan area with the highest share of immigrants.

It was a realignment that, if it sticks, could change American politics.

Texas and Florida are already reliably Republican, but more Hispanics turning away from Democrats in future presidential races could further dent the party’s “blue wall” of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, that had helped catapult it to the White House before Trump romped through all three this time. The shift might even make it harder for Democrats to win in the West, in states such as Arizona and Nevada.

About 7 in 10 Hispanic voters were “very concerned” about the cost of food and groceries, slightly more than about two-thirds of voters overall, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 voters nationwide. Nearly two-thirds of Hispanic voters said that they were “very concerned” about their housing costs, compared with about half of voters overall.

Trump had a clear edge among Hispanic voters who were “very concerned” about the cost of food. Half said he would better handle the economy, compared with about 4 in 10 for Harris. Among Hispanic voters who were very worried about crime in their community, Trump had a similar advantage.

Trump gained ground in some of the areas with the highest concentration of Puerto Ricans in Pennsylvania, the state where Harris spent more time campaigning than any other. He won the counties of Berks, Monroe and Luzerne — and lost Lehigh County by fewer than 5,000 votes against Harris. Biden had carried it by nearly three times that margin in 2020.

Trump’s victory was even wider in Florida, where nearly one-quarter of residents are Hispanic. He won the state by 13 percentage points — or about four times his 2020 margin.

Trump also flipped the central Florida counties of Seminole and Osceola, where many Venezuelans have immigrated as their home country becomes increasingly unstable, and narrowed Democrats’ advantage in Orange County, which is also heavily Venezuelan.

Farther south, Trump won Miami-Dade County with an 11-percentage point advantage after losing it by 7 percentage points to Biden and by 30 percentage points to Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Kevin Marino Cabrera, a Miami-Dade County commissioner who was state director for Trump’s 2020 campaign, said Hispanics rejected the “woke ideology.” Trump has made his opposition to transgender rights central to his campaign.

“To be clear, Hispanic voters are not buying what Democrats are selling,” Cabrera said.

Regarding the Lone Star State’s Hidalgo County, which is 92% Hispanic and the most populous part of the Rio Grande Valley. Trump carried it after losing by more than 40 percentage points in 2016. Trump swept all the major counties along the Texas-Mexico border.

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Republished with permission of the Associated Press.