It is often noted that the Latino vote is not monolithic, and that in fact, Latino voters come from a range of countries, generations, regions, races, creeds, and classes. But with a few exceptions, this loosely connected group has voted strongly Democratic and meets all conventional definitions of a voting bloc.

Until recently.

The Latino population is changing, with parallel consequences for two prominent American institutions: the Democratic Party

and the media giant Univision.

Both have built their successes in recent decades on the idea that Latinos are mainly Spanish-speaking recent immigrants, an image that is increasingly disconnected from reality.

Univision,

long the premier news and entertainment source for millions of American Spanish speakers,

now finds itself at much the same demographic crossroads as Democrats. Slowing immigration rates and exploding numbers of U.S.-born, mostly English-speaking Latinos threaten the network’s hegemony as a news source for the population. Univision’s viewership is plummeting.

The network has no choice but to adapt, as evidenced by its controversial recent decision to air a lengthy and friendly interview with former President Trump. Such moves once again put the media giant at odds with the Democratic Party, which has historically relied on Univision to get its message out and help boost turnout among Latinos.

The simultaneous deterioration of President Biden’s performance

in polls

among Latinos has similar roots. The Latino electorate is moving away from the aggressive immigrant narrative favored by Democrats and toward an assimilative working-class identity that mirrors its non-Latino counterparts.

Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini lays out what’s behind this shift in his new book, Party of the People, pointing out that the average Latino has been in the country longer and is more likely to speak English than he was fifteen years ago, when legal and illegal migration Mexico reached its peak. The fastest growing share of the Latino population is not only U.S. born and English speaking, but is also moving up the economic ladder. According to the Pew Research Center, 72% of Latinos ages 5 and older spoke English fluently last year, up from 65% in 2010. Pew also found that immigrants made up an increasingly smaller share of the Latino population in 2021.

32%, compared to 37% in 2010

.

The number of Latino births in the United States exceeded immigration from Latin America

during that period. The U.S.-born Latino population grew by 10.7 million, while the immigrant population grew by only 1.1 million, a ratio of more than 10 to 1. Accordingly, while Trump saw political advantage in increasing his share of the white to increase votes as an anti-Latino candidate in 2016, his build-the-wall rhetoric was repeated in 2020, when he increased his share of the Latino vote to a stunning

38%

. Heading into 2024, Trump is aggressively trying to woo Latino voters, making a 180-degree turn.

Unlike Univision, Democrats don’t have the luxury of rebuilding their market share quarter after quarter. Losing even a marginally larger share of the Latino vote to Republicans in swing states like Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and Wisconsin could spell disaster within a year if we have one of the most consequential elections in our history. Ironically, Latino voters could be the voting bloc that hands the White House back to Trump, the most anti-Mexican president since James K. Polk, who signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848.

Just as Fox News built a media giant by catering to the views of an older, conservative, white audience that supports Trump and the Republicans, Univision built its empire on the great waves of migration from Latin America at the end of the last century and the beginning of the last century. of this. The base found solace and community in the network’s political advocacy, which often eschewed traditional journalistic norms and openly advocated for Democrats and their politics. Univision’s audience of Spanish-speaking immigrants became one of the most loyal Democratic constituencies in the country, routinely providing more than 80% of their votes to the party.

Like Univision, Democrats have become too dependent on a demographic group that is newer to the country and more Hispanic than Latinos in general. This led a generation of political operatives to subscribe to the demographic-is-fate idea that the growing Latino vote would eventually turn states like Texas and Florida into blue anchors and swing the entire country to the left.

Democrats also clung to the belief that Latino voters identified strongly with the immigrant experience and were best targeted through Spanish television advertising. This strategy was never supported by much empirical evidence and was never very effective at motivating Latino voters, and it is only becoming less so.

Republicans, meanwhile, have noticed and taken advantage of the demographic shift. Democrats have underperformed or moved sharply toward Republicans among Latinos in three of the last four national elections.

Democrats’ recent public attacks on Univision’s overtures to Trump reflected their painful realization that further erosion of Latino support would be disastrous for them come November of next year. But the unfolding war between Democratic-leaning Latino advocacy groups and the network could hamper the Biden campaign’s ability to rebuild support among Latinos. Biden, who polls lower than anyone else among Latinos

other

modern Democratic presidential

candidate

who can’t afford to lose any more Latinos right now, whether they watch Univision or not.

The Latino vote has changed and continues to do so. The Democrats will have to fight, in their interest and in the interest of the countries, for a base that they have always been able to take for granted.

Mike Madrid is a political consultant and author of the forthcoming The Latino Century: How America’s Largest Minority is Shaping Our Democracy.