Latinos have become a new battleground frontier for political candidates

For Eduardo Sanchez, it is “difficult to vote for a candidate you can’t stomach as a Latino.” But the independent voter cast a ballot for Donald Trump this year, after voting for Joe Biden in 2020, pointing to the sharp rise in the cost of living since Biden took office.

For Eduardo Sanchez, it is “difficult to vote for a candidate you can’t stomach as a Latino.” But the independent voter cast a ballot for Donald Trump this year, after voting for Joe Biden in 2020, pointing to the sharp rise in the cost of living since Biden took office. “You’ve only been surviving these past four years after so many prices picked up, from rent to services,” Sanchez, who owns a computer repair shop in San Francisco, told CNN in a Spanish interview. “Democrats are not working for the entire community, just themselves.” Sanchez, a naturalized immigrant from Nicaragua, said Trump’s comments against immigrants and calls for mass deportations “don’t make him seem like a good person,” but the effects of inflation on his family and his business over the past few years made up his mind. Republicans in this year’s US presidential election gained ground with Latino voters, a fast-growing electorate in which more than a million become old enough to vote each year. Their votes proved pivotal in battleground states such as Nevada and Pennsylvania. Many of those voters, dissatisfied with inflation’s eruption since the pandemic, voted for Trump in a rebuke to Biden. They likely won’t feel any meaningful relief under a second Trump term, experts say, which means Democrats still have a chance to bring those voters back into the fold — if they craft the right messaging on the economy. Trump campaigned on cutting taxes, paring back the size of the federal government and rolling out a series of tax breaks, including on tips and Social Security — policies that may have struck a cord with the Latino voters who flocked to Trump this time around.