The New Right, a movement sparked by Donald Trump’s win in 2016 and supported by JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, is bowing out on true conservative values in favor of big government restrictions, economic isolation, and skepticism of international intervention.
This starkly contrasts Ronald Reagan’s GOP, which promoted global leadership abroad, advocated for free-market policies, and was more open to immigration. If the GOP continues to drift further from conservatism’s core values, it will lose the Hispanic vote.
Those who sympathize with or support Vance’s ideas think they will naturally build a multiracial working-class Republican Party since Hispanics are typically working class. Only 27 percent of Hispanics have a college degree. More specifically, they think this is what’s bringing Hispanics to the GOP. They misunderstand the Hispanic voter.
I’m a Hispanic. While the New Right is right to recognize that we tend to embrace more traditional values and keep working-class jobs, it overlooks the critical hallmark of our culture: Hispanics are practical people. We care about how we will put food on the table or whether we can afford to take the family out to eat.
Hispanics aren’t looking for industrial policy or a pro-union message — we want the government to get out of the way so we can provide for our families and grow our businesses. My mother, a Mexican immigrant and in no way a political partisan, recently complained to me about her tax burden and why she thought a Republican president needed to be in the White House. Therefore, some majority Hispanic areas that typically voted Democratic are leaning Republican.
In 2020, Trump made gains with Hispanics, specifically in historically blue Miami-Dade County in Florida and the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. According to a recent New York Times/Siena Poll, Vice President Harris has garnered 57 percent of Hispanics compared to Trump’s 38 percent, similar to how he performed in 2020. Other polls show the race much closer with Hispanics, even showing Trump tied with Harris or behind a few points. However, Trump has shown to do a lot better with non-college-educated Hispanics. He won 41 percent of their vote in 2020 and won only 30 percent of college-educated Hispanics.
Hispanics are up for grabs for two reasons: The Democratic Party’s move to the left and the economy.
Culturally, Hispanics are a natural fit for today’s Republican Party, which cherishes faith, family and hard work. The Democratic Party’s positions on abortion, immigration and policing have turned off Hispanic voters.
Since the 2002 midterm elections, the economy has been the No. 1 issue for Hispanics. On average, Hispanics make an annual income of $60,000, putting them squarely in the middle class. As prices have risen, this has hurt Hispanics living in already expensive and large cities.
Hispanics are also entrepreneurial. There are 5 million Latino-owned businesses in the United States that generate billions in revenue annually.
Unlike the New Right, Freedom and Reagan Conservatives are much more in touch with Hispanics. As the New Right believes in expanding the size of government and ignoring our national debt, Freedom Conservatives think lowering the deficit is an important priority.
The rise in inflation was caused by President Biden’s and Trump’s federal spending during COVID. This, in turn, caused home prices and interest rates to increase. The New Right argues that the old ideas of lowering the deficit won’t win hearts and minds. However, Hispanics want to see a more affordable cost of living. Government spending will continue to hurt people’s wallets in the form of inflation.
This is a massive opportunity for conservatives to make a case to Hispanics regarding why we should lower our deficit, and the way to get there is to decrease spending and common-sense reforms to save crucial social nets.
Another idea the New Right claims is dead is tax cuts. Hispanics recognize that the Trump economy was much stronger than the Biden economy. It was all thanks to the 2017 tax cuts and deregulation.
It didn’t take a massive policy shift from Republicans for Hispanics to see how their lives were being affected. They needed to see that the pro-growth policies of tax cuts, reigning in spending and cutting red tape create a durable economy.
That doesn’t mean we can’t consider other ideas, but if we leave aside our fiscally conservative roots, we run the risk of adopting the same and failed Big Government and anti-growth policies that have made Hispanics and Americans less prosperous than they were four years ago.
