These Latino and Black voters were once Democrats, but Donald Trump changed everything
Adriana Zapata has seen a political shift happening in her community.
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This election, Adriana Zapata noticed something different.
The second-generation Mexican-American saw family, friends and loyal customers at her restaurant in downtown Phoenix, Arizona switching their political allegiances.
Their new candidate? Donald Trump.
"It did really surprise me … now I can see how some of his messages on immigration started to cut through even though that's not how I vote," she said.
The president-elect won 46 per cent of the Latino and Hispanic voter share, up 14 per cent on his 2020 election result, according to an exit poll from Edison Research.
Among Latino men his gains were even higher, with Trump securing 55 per cent nationwide, up 19 percentage points on the 2020 exit poll from when the Republican candidate was defeated in the presidential race by Joe Biden.
It is a figure that is shocking to Democrats who have long relied on the Latinos among their base. Back in 2012, for instance, Barack Obama secured 71 per cent of the vote.
While vote counting in Arizona is continuing, Trump was on course for victory over his Democratic rival Kamala Harris.
"We are not homogenous and that is something political leaders have not understood for too long," said Monica Ramirez, a Latino campaigner and activist.
"We as a community we have different interests, we have different histories, we have different immigration backgrounds, and political parties have treated us like we are the same," she said.
"Political leaders and parties need to take a better look at who Latinos are in this country and understand our differences to be able to engage all of us.
"We have such different lived experiences, different immigration contexts, different histories we bring from our home countries … some of us have been here in the US for much longer."
Adriana Zapata hosted Vice-President Kamala Harris in her restaurant during the campaign.
Adriana was raised in Arizona, which shares a border with Mexico. About a third of the population here identify as Latino or Hispanic.
"Our parents and grandparents came to this country with the dream of starting businesses, to better themselves, now we are the ones who live the American dream," she said.
Many within her community have family living in central and southern America, but there is still a desire for tough border restrictions, she said.
"People who have gained citizenship or a right to be in the country legally, they know the struggle they went through to get there, they feel kind of cheated by someone skipping all those steps."
Tony Anders, 58, is one of her lunchtime regulars at her Mexican restaurant. He is also a second-generation American and a proud Trump supporter.
"My mum came from Panama but she did it the proper way, she learnt English, and now she loves America … that's how you have to do it," he said.
"Donald Trump is going to close the floodgates, send them back, you know come to our country, we will welcome people in but only if they do it the right way."
Adriana supported Harris, even hosting the Democrat at her restaurant during a campaign stop in August.
"It was such an elated moment … I was so excited for a female president but I'm now accepting the new reality."
While counting continues in Arizona, the state appears set to turn red.
'I don't care that he's racist … this is about the economy'
Another of Adriana's customers is 62-year-old Mexican-American, Bob John, who found Trump's comments about mass deportations of immigrations extremely worrying.
Comments made by a comedian at one of Trump's campaign events where Puerto Rico was described as a "floating island of garbage", deeply offended him.
"A lot of Latino men have come here to establish a better life and seem to have forgotten their roots," he said.
"I was voting for my grandchildren, I want them to have the life and lifestyle we've known here in the United States, being free and Democratic … I'm scared for the future now."
Days before the election at one of Trump's final campaign events in Arizona, Chris Sanchez proudly brandished his "Latinos for Trump" sign.
"I don't care that he's racist, you know I think he's not actually racist … but at the end of the day my life was better under Trump, my 40-hour week pay stretched further," he said.
"For me and a lot of Latinos this is just about the economy."
Chris Sanchez shows off his support for Donald Trump in Phoenix this week.
In other states with large Latino communities like Texas and Florida, there was a significant shift towards the right from Hispanic voters.
In Starr County, a Texas border region with a majority Latino population, Donald Trump ended a more than 100-year-hold of the Democrats, flipping the county red.
"I think the lesson here is that the primary identity of Americans is American," Republican Florida senator Marco Rubio, told NBC's the Today Show after the election.
"[Trump's] primary message was, 'I'm going to put the interests of Americans and America before anything else,' I think that's a message that's resonated.
"Whether you're of Hispanic descent or African-American or of any background, the price of gas, the price of food, the fear of uncertainty and not being safe in your own community ... people want what's best for them."
Phoenix, Arizona, is home to a large Latino and Hispanic community.
Monica says there's a lot that could be learnt from the campaign, and believes the Democrats will need to work on their outreach and strategy particularly with men.
"Our men tend to lean more conservative, one of the main issues in our community has been economy and immigration, and Latino men particularly," she said.
"There is a lot of education needs to be done in our community for them to understand the reality of new immigrants and the state of our economy."
Black voters turn to Trump
It's not just some Hispanic and Latino voters shifting away from the Democrats.
Young voters and Black men - two of the party's core demographics - also appear to be turning to Trump.
Harris won the vote among 18-29-year-olds with 53 per cent, but Donald Trump improved 7 percentage points on his 2020 exit Edison exit poll.
The Christian 180 Church in Detroit, Michigan, has been the scene of some pro-Trump sermons.
On the outskirts of Detroit, Michigan, Lorenzo Sewell lead a prayer for the new president after the results became clear.
The controversial pastor has hosted the president-elect in his Christian 180 Church and has encouraged congregation members, who are mostly black, to vote for him.
His support for Trump is an outlier in the Motor City, where traditionally, about 90 per cent of the Black population votes Democrat.
Trump flipped the state at Tuesday's election. One of the reasons behind his victory was increasing his share of the vote in deep-blue Detroit.
"Politics is math and when it comes down to the math of politics the Democrats know they cannot lose their most loyal voting — what's their most loyal voting bloc? Black people. Black people have voted blindly Democrats since the 60s," Sewell said.
Lorenzo Sewell told his congregation to vote for Donald Trump.
Exit polling from the presidential election revealed Trump gained ground among Black voters, particularly Black men.
Sewell said Democratic politicians have spent decades courting Black voters but have failed to deliver any meaningful change to the communities who elected them.
He believes it's led many Black voters to cast their ballot for a Republican candidate for the first time.
"They don't care about us. They don't know what it means to live on this side of Detroit. They have no idea what it means to live here," he said.
Rick Wilcoxon, another member of Sewell's church, argued Democrats had become out of touch with the Black community.
Still, he was the only member of his family to vote for Donald Trump.
"My ethnicity has been voting for Democrat for 40 years and every blue state you could imagine is crime-ridden, the poverty rate is high and heavy taxation and just pure chaos," he said.
"Yet they sell us on the fact that they are better for us than the Republicans. Black Lives don't matter to them, Black votes matter to them."
Trump's political and real estate career has been plagued by allegations of racism.
During the presidential campaign, Trump said illegal immigrants were taking "Black jobs".
The comment was widely derided and was seen as a potential election-losing moment for the Republican nominee.
Ramone Jackson does not feel like the Democrats have his best interests at heart.
But Ramone Jackson, who not only voted for Trump this time but also when he won the presidency in 2016, said the comment resonated with him.
"We understand the concept of what he was saying, he was saying that it's certain jobs that certain people take," he said.
"Immigrants, being able to influx into our community doesn't help us at all, at all."
Republican officials have told the ABC Trump's strategy to win Michigan revolved around to broadening his appeal to Black voters and Arab-Americans.
Pete Hoekstra, the Chairman of the GOP in Michigan said the strategy was helped by community leaders reaching out to the party.
"It was certainly our plan, but community leaders have come to us saying they are frustrated with the leadership of the Democrats so it was about working with them," he said.
By：ABC(责任编辑：admin)
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