Latino voters are the new 'free agents' of elections. Behind Trump's 2024 red wave

WESLACO, Texas ― For Rufino Herrera, the Democratic Party used to be the party of the people.

Herrera, 64, grew up in a colonia in Weslaco, a small city nestled near the heart of the Rio Grande Valley. A place where people lived off beans, rice and tortillas to make it through the week. There Herrera said he learned “the struggles of people.” And why he and his family flocked to Democrats, who promised to help families like his.

He no longer recognizes that party. Now, he says, it’s become home to “elites.”

Democrats were for workers, Herrera said. “The party is now focused on Hollywood, millionaires, and billionaires.”

Herrera spent many years as an Army officer, which allowed him to travel from his poor neighborhood to the “far reaches of the world” — from Germany to Iraq to New York to California. He became a school counselor when he left the service. He retired and took a security guard job at a church several towns over.

He and his friends have had to make sacrifices. A neighbor who retired had to go back to work. Another retired friend is struggling to help parents with dementia. Even Herrera downsized in recent years, moving from a four-bedroom home to a mobile home community.

So Herrera migrated – and eventually found a home – in the Republican Party.

In Texas’ southern tip, where Herrera is from, the Rio Grande Valley was safely Democratic for almost a century. But in the 2024 presidential election, Trump flipped all four counties that make up the Rio Grande Valley: Starr, Hidalgo, Cameron and Willacy.

“I would vote looking for candidates that had the same values: family, people, working and all that stuff,” said Herrera, who voted for Barack Obama in 2008. “And that shifted nowadays, in my opinion, to the point that now the Republican Party is now the People's Party.”

Over the past several election cycles, Trump and Republicans have made inroads in South Texas. GOP Rep. Monica De La Cruz held on to her seat this year that she flipped in 2022. Other Republican candidates are narrowing the gap between Democrats, like former Rep. Mayra Flores who lost against Democrat Rep. Vicente Gonzalez by 3 percentage points.

The shift comes after decades-long investments from Republicans in the area, who set up community centers and invested in phone banking and canvassing that promoted messages on the economy, education and immigration to try and appeal to the largely Hispanic community.

“We proved one thing, that when you show up to the Hispanic community and knock on the doors, when you ask for the vote, and when you have good policies, you get the vote,” said

Abraham Enriquez, founder and president of Bienvenido US, a conservative Latino outreach group.

For Herrera like many others in the Rio Grande Valley, the economy was a huge factor for in this election.

“Everybody says the cost of living here in the Valley is low,” he said. “But it's not really low, because the average middle class American is still struggling here, because everything is sky high. Food is sky high. Housing is sky high.”

Not a Red wave, but a Trump wave

Republicans have been laying the groundwork in the Rio Grande Valley for almost a decade. In 2014, GOP Gov. Greg Abbott invested heavily in Spanish language ads and door knocking for his candidacy for governor.

But Trump’s candidacy was a key factor in the shift in the Rio Grande Valley.

Republicans leaned into grassroots efforts like door knocking and canvassing. So-called “Trump Trains” – caravans of vehicles with Trump signs and flags – became a staple amid the presidential cycles. Trump began closing the gap between Republicans and Democrats at the presidential level.

Democrat Hillary Clinton held the area by more than 30 percentage points over Trump in 2016, but President Joe Biden beat Trump in the region by less than half in most of the counties in the region in 2020.

Republicans saw their first wins down ballot in the region in 2022, after Mayra Flores won a special election in early 2022 for Texas's 34th congressional district. Flores was the first Mexican-born congresswoman to be elected nationwide after winning a special election in early 2022. But months later she lost the seat during the general election against longtime Democratic congressman, Vicente Gonzalez.

Two years later, Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz flipped a Democratic seat and won reelection this year.

On top of that, Republicans opened up temporary community centers that taught residents English and helped with citizenship applications, said Eric Holguin, the Texas state director for UnidosUS who is based in the Rio Grande Valley.

Holguin said that whenever residents hear about a party investing in their community, those voters are likely going to back that party.

“It's just one party, the Republican Party, took a liking to — and whether the interests were genuine or not – they took a liking to the Valley,” Holguin said. “And one party kind of just said, you know, we're gonna go pay attention to Ohio and Michigan, Wisconsin. And that's what happens, and it showed in the results.”

Immigration a rising concern

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Joshua Chapa’s job on the oil field was put on hold.

Biden had come into office. There was a rise in migrants coming to the United States’ southern border. So Chapa, who lives in Rio Grande City,  looked for opportunities in an always burgeoning industry: immigration.

The 36-year-old worked at two of Texas’ notorious facilities that housed unaccompanied minors who came to the country illegally in Carrizo Springs and Pecos. Later he was stationed in Chicago to work with families who were coming to seek asylum. He said he met good people trying to come to the United States. He also  remembers having to kick out several men who tried to abuse their wives or girlfriends, and others who were affiliated with gangs.

Chapa was at the frontline of a broken system, and knows people who are undocumented. But even as Trump promises mass deportations, revoking "temporary protected status," or TPS, and ending birthright citizenship, Chapa’s support for the president-elect hasn’t wavered.

“They've always had a risk of being deported,” Chapa said of people living in the United States without legal status. “It doesn't matter who's president.”

While the economy and high prices topped the list of concerns for many voters, border security too became a larger issue.

Border cities have often borne the brunt of costs and housing for migrants coming to the United States. But a growing number of Latino voters – 75%  – said ahead of the election that the increased number of migrants coming to the border was a major problem or crisis, according to Pew Research Center.

Derric and Lori Trevi?o, whose home is close to the U.S.-Mexico border in Rio Grande City, said they’ve had family and friends who have immigrated to the U.S. Each process took years. Paperwork. Expensive filing fees.

But now, Derric Trevi?o said he believes the people who are coming to the United States are taking advantage of taxpayers. He criticized migrants who were given cell phones by the U.S. government (Immigration and Customs Enforcement gave phones to some migrants, which have limited access to an app that allows officials to track them) He also disapproved of migrants being put up in hotels or given flights to their destinations.

“You start to realize, this is our money,” Trevi?o  said. “They're traveling on our dime. We're paying for all of this. I understand the Christian thing, you know, help your neighbor, this and that. But this is absolutely abuse.”

The economy election

Their White BMW was boxed in as hundreds of cars stopped on the shoulder of Texas State Highway 48 that runs between Brownsville and Port Isabel.

Father and son, Tony and Cristian Cantu, stood with the hundreds of Valley residents – and some who traveled from across the state – to see Elon Musk’s SpaceX launch.

It was a special day for the two. Not just because it was the first time the Cantu duo had seen a launch, but because Trump was also in town to see the same launch.

Tony Cantu, 57, and his son Cristian Cantu, 31, of Edinburg, both voted for the president-elect in November. The younger Cantu described both tech mogul Elon Musk and Trump as “two great minds.”

Cantu has been an electrician for a decade and believes that Trump will do better at supporting workers than the current administration as high prices continue.

“No taxing on overtime is going to be good,” Cantu said, pointing to Trump’s plan. “I’m a blue-collar man myself.”

The Rio Grande Valley is poorer than most of Texas.

The region’s poverty rate is higher than the states’ average. And the median income for the region – ranging from $49,471 in Hidalgo County and $47,435 in Cameron County in 2022 – is well below the national median income at $74,580 in 2022, according to the Census Bureau.

During the Biden administration, Trevi?o said he and his wife saw their paychecks dwindle faster as their prices for groceries and car insurance went up. Trevi?o said he’s had to use his savings to help supplement his day to day life. He and his wife can no longer afford to go on trips.

“Every aspect of our lives – every single aspect – that there is nothing has been untouched by the policies of the Biden administration,” said Trevi?o, 54. “Nothing.”

It’s the same struggle that many in the Rio Grande Valley say they have. Savings, if they had any, were drying up. Paychecks were no longer stretching as far.

Chapa, also of Rio Grande City, will be traveling between Texas and Boston for the next couple of months for a pipeline project. He’s hoping that wages and the economy improve under Trump. It’s one of the reasons why he believes that more residents of the Rio Grande Valley are turning away from Democrats.

“When you can't even afford groceries, you can't afford gas, there’s crying in the kitchen with your wife, and you can't even afford things, and people are just focused on things that doesn't even affect 90% of the country, it's just like people kind of gave up,” he said.

A flag with Trump’s name printed over an American flag waved in the brisk morning outside of Herrera’s mobile home.

Herrera said it’s clear the dynamics are changing. Voters aren’t in the Rio Grande Valley aren’t satisfied with the policies in place. And now, the Latino-majority voting bloc in the region are the “power brokers.”

“We're free agents, like the sports world,” he said. “We got to do what we have to do for ourselves. Not what the party says.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The 2024 Trump shift: Latino voters shunned 'elite' Democratic Party