Economy, illegal immigration, concern for Dems' priorities drove Hispanic support for Trump in 2024 

One of Donald Trump's backers called Puerto Rico "a floating island of garbage."  Trump pledged to deport millions of Latino illegal immigrants in the biggest mass deportation in U.S. history. He also called Mexican migrants rapists, criminals and drug dealers.

Yet Trump’s support among Hispanic voters shot up in the presidential election — from 32% in 2020 to 46% in 2024, according to CNN exit polls — and helped propel him to one of the most remarkable political comebacks in the nation’s history.

In the critical swing state of Pennsylvania — where 9% of the population is Hispanic, nearly half of them Puerto Ricans — Trump’s support among Latinos jumped to 42% from 27% four years ago.

How did Trump cut so deeply into what once was a core Democratic constituency?

For Oneyda Gallardo, a Salvadoran who lives in Smithtown, the answer is simple. Democrats, she said, had the wrong policies on the economy and illegal immigration and anointed Kamala Harris as their candidate with no primary or input from voters.

For the first time in her life, Gallardo, a Democrat, voted for a Republican for president: Trump.

"I am a registered Democrat, but that doesn’t make me to be blind. I’ve seen it," said Gallardo, 46, a real estate investor. "It’s hard for me to make a change and vote red for the first time in my life. [But] these have been the worst four years of my life on the economy side of it."

Gallardo is far from the only Latina on Long Island who backed Trump. Local Latino politicians and community leaders on both sides of the political aisle said the trend here mirrored what happened nationally.

They say Trump and the Republicans are aligning more with the conservative views of many Latinos on issues including the economy, inflation, immigration, gender identity, family values, religion and even the desire for a strongman-type leader they think will solve the nation’s troubles.

Comments about Puerto Ricans and others aside, "What is really in the minds of Hispanic Americans that live here in Suffolk County is the fact that the economy is in shambles, there is a security crisis in our streets," said Jesse Garcia, chairman of the Suffolk County Republican Party.

The stock market has hit record highs under President Joe Biden, and inflation has dropped from a high of 9.1% to 2.4% currently, but many people say they are still suffering from high grocery prices, mortgage rates and other economic problems.

A preelection Pew Research Center poll backed up the assertion that the economy was the top priority for Latinos: 85% listed it as No. 1. Among Trump supporters, it was even higher: 93%. That was followed among Trump supporters by violent crime at 73%, and immigration at 71%.

Garcia himself is the offspring of immigrants from Cuba and is the first Hispanic to serve as any party’s county leader in New York State.

Gallardo said she didn’t like the comments by the comedian about Puerto Rico at the Madison Square Garden rally on Oct. 27, and that "Trump isn’t perfect." But she feels she must prioritize "the big picture" of major policy issue — like immigration, with a record surge of illegal immigrants under the Biden administration.

"We have an out-of-control immigration system," Gallardo said. "We know this country is for immigrants, but we need order."

A record 250,000 illegal migrants were detained by U.S. Border Patrol agents in December 2023, though that number has dropped to about 50,000 a month now after Biden imposed restrictions in June. A bipartisan border security bill was killed in Congress in May after Trump pressured Republicans to defeat it.

Claudia Rodriguez, 46, a native of the Dominican Republic who lives in Port Washington, said illegal immigration angered her, too. "We had to wait our turn in line. We had to do our paperwork," she said. "Why should anyone else get to skip the line?"

Walter Mejia, 20, a Salvadoran from East Patchogue, said it was particularly galling to many Latinos that illegal immigrants received free debit cards, health care and hotel rooms in places including New York City, which says it has spent at least $5 billion on the influx of migrants sent there by border states.

"It makes a lot of Hispanics feel very resentful, especially people who came here as immigrants. They came here through the process," said Mejia, who works for the New York State Republican Assembly. "You’re spitting in their faces."

Concerns about Democrats' values

Like Gallardo, Rodriguez said she didn’t pay much attention to the incendiary language coming from Trump or his backers.

"I look at the policies. The personality — I could care less if I like him," said Rodriguez, a minority businesses consultant. "When we had Trump in the office previously, my business did better, my income was better, my situation was better in general, and now it’s not. It’s that simple."

Trump left office as the economic aftershocks of the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, leaving the economy in a hole.

Rodriguez also dislikes what she called the Democrats’ embrace of "woke movement" extremes and the possibility of her daughter having to share a bathroom with a male transitioning to female.

"My entire life I grew up thinking that the American dream was led by Democrats because there is an ideology attached to it," she said. But "the values I have been witnessing the last few years, honestly they scare me."

Rodriguez said she convinced her 79-year-old mother, a "diehard Democrat," to vote for Trump. Her brother, her son and her best friend, who had voted for Joe Biden in 2020, also voted for Trump this year.

Luis Guillen, 51, an insurance broker from Huntington Station who was raised in El Salvador, said his Christian faith was a main factor in voting for Trump. While he acknowledges Trump isn't perfect — including his convictions for sexual assault and for falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal — he sees the president-elect as someone open to redemption and spiritual direction from a higher power.

"I don’t believe that Trump is perfect," Guillen said. " ... But I believe that if God gives him wisdom and he follows that wisdom, we’re going to have a better country, a great America."

Guillen also said Trump’s background as a businessman made him a good fit for the presidency, a trait especially valued among the many Latino immigrants who are entrepreneurs.

"We need someone who is going to run the country as a business because politicians are politicians, and business people are business people," he said. "The economy is going down the hill. The prices are skyrocketing."

For Katherine Cortavarria, 49, an immigrant from Peru who lives in Bay Shore, her Christian faith and relatively conservative values drew her to Trump. She doesn’t like the Democrats’ moves to legalize marijuana, push abortion rights, and allow teenagers to undergo sex change operations.

Adolescents "don’t have the maturity to decide what gender" they should be, she said. "It’s not normal. It’s not OK" and is "making them confused. I will never support that."

Garcia said he believes many Latinos are shifting to the Republican Party because of faith, family and entrepreneurship. Long Island is home to about 315,000 voting-age Hispanics, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Luis Montes, a Democratic political consultant on Long Island who was raised in El Salvador, said part of Trump’s appeal to some Latinos is also the perception that he is what in Latin America is called a "caudillo" — "that strong person or that savior type of character, that one person will fix the system type of mentality. The antiestablishment guy that will come and save the country."

A history of strongmen leadership

There is a long history of caudillos in Latin America — some beloved, some hated, some both — including Fidel Castro in Cuba, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Alberto Fujimori in Peru, Rafael Correa in Ecuador, Evo Morales in Bolivia.

The latest is El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, who has built a mega prison that can hold 40,000 inmates as part of an effort to get rampant gang violence under control. Guillen said Bukele — who was also an affluent businessman and has sky-high approval ratings — has turned one of the most dangerous countries in the world into one of the safest, though human rights advocates contend he also has rounded up innocent people.

Garcia noted that Trump won points in the Latino community on Long Island when he visited twice in 2018 to denounce violence by the MS-13 Salvadoran gang.

But there is also irony in the fact some Latinos supported a candidate they see as a "caudillo," Montes said. "The irony of this is that people have fled their countries because of caudillos and now they come to America, and they support a caudillo."