Opinion: Thank you, Donald Trump

On behalf of all the political organizers and activists, like me, who have spent a lifetime trying to unite the diverse Latino community, I want to convey my gratitude for your historic achievement in Tuesday’s midterm elections. 

What you accomplished is no small feat. We worked hard for decades to bring together Cuban-Americans in Miami with Puerto Ricans in Orlando and Dominican-Americans in New York, moderates in the Rio Grande Valley with leftists in Chicago.  

In two short years, you have established common ground between people who have proudly held onto their differences: who believe their family roots matter more than a shared language or cultural touchpoints. 

Much of that achievement was entirely intentional, even if you expected different political results. You sought to demonize and terrorize all Latinos, despite your rhetoric about only going after the worst of the worst, like hardened criminals and narco-terrorists.  

Immigration is now a top five issue for Latinos, with almost two-thirds saying it’s very important to their vote. Four years ago, in the last midterms, immigration barely scraped into the top ten issues, alongside climate change and the Supreme Court. 

As we rise up the economic and social ladder, some Latinos often like to make distinctions that separate us from the crowd of new immigrants – that we have less of an accent, more financial security, live in a better neighborhood, carry the right passport, or look less brown.  

You have succeeded in erasing those marks of assimilation and social climbing. None of that matters under the aggressive raids you have ordered in our communities. None of it matters around schools where your officers find it easier to fill their quotas. 

According to a recent Pew Research poll, 59 per cent of Latinos say ICE has conducted raids in their neighborhoods in recent months, and more than half of American-born Latinos are worried about deportations. 

That might just explain the results in southern Florida, where two of the most prominent Cuban-American Republicans were fighting to squeak out victory several hours after the polls closed. Mario Diaz-Balart and Maria Elvira Salazar experienced close calls with defeat because their own Cuban-American supporters were part of the double-digit swing to Democrats across their districts.

All over the country, Latinos shifted towards Democratic candidates by an eye-popping 28 points, according to The New York Times analysis of voter trends. No other demographic group moved as far, except for younger voters aged 18-29 years, and because Latinos are younger than any other group, I am sure we increased that statistic. 

This kind of seismic shift in Latino political behavior does not happen by chance. The brownlash against Republicans is the legacy of your ideology and the billions of taxpayer dollars you convinced Congress to hand over to your masked and armed ICE officers.  

You made historic gains among Latino voters in 2024 and then frittered them away in record time. You were so determined to mis-read Latino sentiment that you gerrymandered several House districts to tip the balance of the midterms. Instead, you energized Latino voters and candidates who will have a lasting impact on our national politics for years to come.  

Top of that list is what you achieved in Texas, just two years after winning all four Rio Grande Valley counties. The newly gerrymandered districts shifted between 25 and an astonishing 45 points towards the Democrats, thanks to you. They also propelled one of their own, Gina Hinojosa, to become the first Latina governor of the Lone Star state, and the first Democrat to lead the state in a generation.  

Those results were mirrored across the country where Latino voters are so widely distributed that we can turn around close races in almost every state. Manny Rutinel flipped a seat in the north Denver suburbs in Colorado, as did Randy Villegas in the southern central valley in California, and JoAnna Mendoza had the same result in the Tucson suburbs in Arizona.  In each of these communities, Latinos came together across countries of origin, economic sector, profession and generation to send a message. 

There’s no doubt that the cost-of-living crisis has hurt your support among Latinos, as it has among all Americans. Perhaps you thought your policies of cutting taxes and cutting benefits would help in some way. But that’s not how your policies landed with the Latino working families who thought you could lift the economy two years ago. They believe your corruption has made the cost of living worse. 

There are lessons here for political candidates and parties beyond the ones about your hubris and terrorizing minority communities with federal agents.  

The multi-layered identities of Latinos have not disappeared. At heart, we need to be persuaded. We need convincing in every election cycle because we do not belong to the base of one party or another.

If Democrats assume that Latinos will vote the same way in 2028 as they did on Tuesday, they will make the same mistake as all those loyal gerrymandering governors who foolishly followed your lead. 

The presidential contest to replace you now begins in earnest. Anyone who is serious about succeeding you into the White House needs to start their Latino voter outreach the same day they launch their exploratory committees. 

Because uniting and mobilizing Latino voters is not a simple or easy task. It takes intention, effort, and resources. And your brutal, racist presidency won’t be around to help.