Minority working-class voters revealed what pushed them away from the Democratic Party and toward President-elect Donald Trump in a New York Times article titled “For Minority Working-Class Voters, Dismay With Democrats Led to Distrust.”
While the Democratic Party has always relied on minority and working-class support, Trump made unprecedented gains in the 2024 election with Black, Hispanic, and blue-collar voters.
The Times reported that in discussions with Latino, Black, and Asian American voters around the country over the last year, they constantly heard the same worries about how the Democratic Party has failed them.
Daniel Trujillo, an East Las Vegas barbershop owner, says he and many of his clients now believe the Democratic Party represents the elites rather than the working class.
“Democrats have flipped,” he told the Times. “They went from being for the working class to, if you’re not college-educated and have money, you’re not worthy.”
“The right turned blue-collar and went full border-control, strong-economy and law-and-order,” according to Trujillo. “Who doesn’t want that?”
Voters told the newspaper that the Democratic Party’s hurried warnings about Trump’s threat to democracy had less of an impact on their vote than their concerns about rising living costs.
David Paiz, a 52-year-old maintenance worker for the city of Las Vegas, departed California owing to high living costs and sees Trump’s triumph as a new age of increased chances for his family.
“There’s a lot of things that I want to do, that we want to do for our sons, for their future, to prepare them for success,” Paiz relayed to the press. “But with this government, I don’t see that happening. Now that Trump will be our new president, I see a lot more possibilities.”
Other Trump supporters shared similar concerns about the financial restraints their families face as a result of the high cost of living.
“People can’t afford nothing,” Walter Mendoza, a 30-year-old financial adviser living with his mother in Allentown, Pennsylvania, told the newspaper. “So I’m voting for somebody who could more manage [sic] the country better.”
Instead of living paycheck-to-paycheck, Mendoza expressed hope that under Trump’s leadership, most Americans will be able to buy “a couple of nice things”.
According to the report, many minority working-class voters perceived the Democratic Party as “condescending” and “overly focused on issues irrelevant to their day-to-day lives,” such as abortion and the transgender rights fight.
Trump won all seven battleground states in the 2024 election. According to a Fox News Voter Analysis, 63% of voters who described as “falling behind financially” chose Trump over Harris. In this election, Trump increased his vote share by six points among Hispanic voters and eight points among voters under 30.