1 week Ago By Mitchell Armentrout
Little Village resident Leticia Cruz voted for Republican President-elect Donald Trump this year because his message on the economy was easier to understand. Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, “made sense, but sometimes it felt like she wasn’t sure what she was talking about,” said Cruz, 55, who is of Mexican descent and whose husband is Mexican. As for Trump’s plan to deport millions of undocumented immigrants , Cruz said she’s not worried.
“From what I heard, he wants to clean up, he wants to remove those with crimes, not those who are working to be here. He will give them a chance,” said Cruz, who didn’t vote in 2020 but has supported Democrats in the past. She was among growing ranks of Latinos in Chicago and beyond who went with the GOP at the top of the 2024 ticket, with many voters looking past Trump’s controversial immigration policies and supporting his economic agenda.
Trump drew an estimated 45% of Latino votes nationwide, according to NBC News exit polls — the most support the community has given a Republican presidential candidate since George W. Bush won in 2004. The rightward trend played out in parts of deep-blue Chicago, too, as Democrats grapple with how to retain — and regain — support from a crucial and growing demographic of voters.
“This is a wake-up call to Democratic leaders, because the party has gone too far to the extreme left,” said Ald. Silvana Tabares (23rd). “Latinos by and large hold traditional family values and care about the American dream of self sufficiency.
” With mail ballots still arriving a week after Election Day, about 41.3% of voters in Tabares’ majority-Hispanic Southwest Side ward sided with Trump, up from 32.3% in 2020 and 26.
8% in 2016. Ald. Silvana Tabares (23rd) attends a City Council meeting at City Hall on Oct.
9. Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th) is seated to the left.
Pat Nabong/Sun-Times Ward boundaries were slightly different in Trump’s first two campaigns, before legislative maps were redrawn in 2020, but Tabares said the lesson for Democrats in the numbers holds true. “Right now, we need to be focusing on issues that people care about: the economy, taxes and keeping people safe,” said Tabares, a moderate who also serves as 23rd Ward Democratic committeeperson. “If you don’t focus on the right problems, it’s no surprise you’re going to lose.
” The top of the Republican ticket also made incremental inroads in other Latino precincts, decreasing Harris’ wide margins in parts of Brighton Park and Little Village. Pending final vote tallies, Trump won upward of 30% in parts of those neighborhoods, up from the teens in his previous runs. Trump took about 19% of the vote in Ald.
Byron Sigcho-Lopez’s 25th Ward that includes Pilsen, up from about 13% in 2020. The progressive alderperson echoed the harsh criticism level against the Democratic Party by independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“The Democratic Party has abandoned Latino voters, LGBTQ voters, Muslim voters and more, to tailor their message for Republicans who will never tailor to them,” Sigcho-Lopez said. “When people don’t see government working for working people, they will look for a new answer.” Latino Policy Forum President Sylvia Puente said it’s important to note a majority of Latinos still did not vote for Trump, while historically, about one-third of Latino voters have supported Republicans.
She suggests the GOP’s gain this year illustrates “the extent to which so many people in the Latino community are economically fragile and hurting. “The same issues all Americans care about, Latinos care about. Economic issues trump everything else,” said Puente, who added that voter outreach in the Latino community was “sorely lacking” from both sides.
Sylvia Puente, president of the Latino Policy Forum. Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times While he isn’t able to vote, Little Village resident Abraham Silva, 45, says he’s supported Democratic politicians his whole life. This election, though, he leaned toward Trump.
Silva says he’s been disheartened by Democratic-led cities like Chicago providing immediate assistance for new arrivals from the southern border, while longtime migrants have had to fight for support. “I kinda get it now: America first, us first, those who live here,” Silva said. “We’re not trying to say forget the immigrants, that’s not what we’re saying.
If you can’t take care of your own house, how are you going to take care of other people? “It’s not Democrat or Republican. It’s who is going to benefit us and who is taking advantage of us,” Silva said, adding the Democratic Party “took us for granted.” Eric Ortega, 80, who came to Chicago from Mexico City in 1994 and wasn’t able to vote, said he would have picked Trump because the economy was better under his first administration.
He also waved off concerns about mass deportations. “He’s not going for everyone, he’s going for those with conflicts, those who are aggressive, the gangs, those who push drugs,” Ortega said. “Not those who work, because they come here to do the country good with their work.
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