Hispanic shift toward Trump drove his momentum in Dem strongholds

Trump cut into Democratic margins in blue strongholds in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan areas, where Republicans have often floundered. A combination of issues, such as a lack of turnout for Harris, helped Trump.

But changing Republican demographics also likely drove the shift. Latino support for Trump, particularly among men, boomed in comparison to 2020. According to NBC News, support for Trump among Latinos went from 32% in 2020 to 45% in 2024, a 13-point gain. For Latino men, it went from 36% to 54%.

The GOP leader also made gains among Asian voters from 34% support in 2020 to 38% in 2024.

New York was likely a prime example of where these gains paid off. Trump lost to Harris by just 11 points after losing to Hillary Clinton in 2016 by about 22 points and President Joe Biden in 2020 by 23 points, respectively. He had shifted the state 10 points to the right for the strongest presidential performance in the state since 1988 with 44% support and won several counties that he failed to in either of his previous runs.

Namely, Trump won Long Island’s Nassau County, which had been untouchable for Republican presidential candidates since 1988. He also flipped Rockland County with a 14-point shift to the right from 2020.

Lastly, and most notably, Trump shifted much of New York City to the right. That was most felt in Queens, where Harris won by 23 points, about half of what Biden won it by in 2020. Trump also picked up considerable support from the Bronx. Both of those boroughs are immigrant-friendly areas that reflected Trump’s gains among minority voters.

Trump had taken plenty of time during his Manhattan trial to visit the Bronx and Queens, and it appears to have paid dividends for him.

“It’s impossible not to see that last night’s national defeat was also very much a NY story,” Democratic Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine said. “This was our state’s worst presidential result since 1988. We lost ground in almost every NYC neighborhood & every demographic. To say a major reckoning is due is an understatement.”

While some of the margins had to do with a lack of turnout for Harris, Trump gained about 30,000 votes in Queens alone. Voters were coming out for Trump in New York’s urban areas.

That sentiment spread to New Jersey, a state Trump lost by 5 five points. In the most populous county in the state, Bergen County, Trump came within 4 points of beating Harris. That made the county 13 points more Republican than in 2020, albeit mostly due to about 60,000 fewer votes for Harris than the last election cycle.

That lesser turnout trend continued in Union County, where Biden netted about 30,000 more votes than Harris did. Trump gained votes from 2020 in both counties. Other populous counties such as Monmouth and Middlesex added to the trend, offering a pathway for Trump to make the state competitive.

One of the more stunning examples was Hudson County, which is around 41% Hispanic, and where Biden won by 46 points in 2020.

Harris won it by 28 points, the lowest margin for a Democrat since 1992. She hemorrhaged votes that Biden had captured to the tune of about 50,000, while Trump gained around 10,000. Her losses there seem to have a lot to do with Hispanics leaning toward Trump.

“The Democratic Party talks about helping the poor, but if you talk about Hudson County, it’s segregated and the working class, and the liberal enclaves are basically the people who are supporting Wall Street in the places they can’t afford the rent. There’s no affordable housing,” Jose Arango, Republican Party chairman of Hudson County, told Politico. “All that together, it was like a hurricane.”

Democrats are taking the losses in New Jersey as a warning sign.

“This is a symbolic victory. I don’t think any offices go along with symbolic victories for Republicans by cutting it close in New Jersey,” Democratic strategist Dan Bryan told the outlet. “That said, Democrats need to take this extremely seriously by looking at whether this is an individual one-off or if there is something deeper and more systematic.”

Outside of New York and New Jersey, Trump made gains in Connecticut and Rhode Island, cutting the Democratic margin from 2020 down 7 and 8 points, respectively. While the Northeast saw considerable gains for Republicans, no state offered more evidence for Trump’s gains among Hispanics than Florida.

In previous Democratic stronghold Miami-Dade County, Trump shifted the electorate to the right by almost 20 points. That led to a blowout 13-point win for Trump in the state.

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And while the Northeast didn’t contribute to Trump’s presidential win as vitally, it certainly showed the reverberations emanating from a shifting Republican demographic that elected Trump while Harris faltered.

“They came from all quarters,” Trump said in his Florida victory speech. “Union, non-union, African American, Hispanic American. We had everybody, and it was beautiful.”