Rita Panahi: Trump’s support among minorities soars to 60 year Republican high
For a man labelled as a racist, sexist, homophobic bigot, Donald Trump has increased his support among minorities, writes Rita Panahi.
Rita Panahi
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Donald Trump has been maligned as a racist, sexist, homophobic and transphobic white supremacist since he announced he was running for president in 2015.
So, how did a man condemned as an unrepentant bigot, and regularly likened to Hitler, secure the largest non-white vote of any Republican presidential candidate in 60 years?
In a result that stunned the Democrats and political pundits alike, President Trump increased his support among minorities including male and female black voters, Jews, the LGBT community and among male and female Latinos.
If you thought that this would cause the race-obsessed commentariat to reflect on their narrative, you’d be sorely disappointed.
The New York Times published a piece claiming that “the power of the white patriarchy” had caused oppressed women and minorities to stand with their oppressors. The writer was particularly triggered by LGBT support for Trump, which is strongest among gay men.
Critical race theory advocate and history re-writer Nikole Hannah Jones who received a Pulitzer for the error riddled 1619 Project decried that the Latino community “lumps white Cubans with Black Puerto Ricans”. The Atlantic’s Jemele Hill posted: “If Trump wins re-election, it’s on white people. No one else.”
A rather confused analysis given that the exit polls showed the only demographic that Trump lost ground with was white men.
For months we were assured that Biden would win in a landslide and perhaps he would’ve if not for Latino voters in states such as Florida, Ohio, Texas and Georgia. Trump got almost half the Latino vote in Florida, according to CNN’s exit poll, with the Republicans winning two Democratic-leaning congressional districts that Trump lost by double digits in 2016.
In the most Hispanic county in America Trump won 52.5 per cent of the vote, just four years earlier Hillary Clinton won 65.7 per cent of the vote in Zapata where 94.7 per cent of the population is Hispanic.
What many on the Left fail to appreciate is that Latino and Hispanic voters are often conservative in their values and those who have escaped tyranny and socialism have no time for the Democrats’ lurch to the far Left.
Cuban-Americans in particular are sensitive to the Democrats’ embrace of radical policies and the “democratic socialism” pushed by the likes of Bernie Sanders and the Squad. In states like Texas and Pennsylvania many rely on oil and gas for their livelihood and are rightly concerned with Biden’s plan to transition towards renewables.
Just like other voters, minorities tend to care most about jobs and the economy, ahead of the racial politics that seems to obsess affluent white Leftists. The Democrats still receive the overwhelming majority of black votes but an increasing number are walking away from the party that has long taken them and their vote for granted.
Trump has tripled and doubled the black vote that former Republican presidential candidates John McCain and Mitt Romney achieved and he’s gained significantly more black votes in 2020 than in 2016 despite running against a ticket featuring a black candidate, Kamala Harris.
Black unemployment falling to its lowest level ever under the Trump administration no doubt motivated some to switch their allegiance.
Another may be the Black Lives Matter movement and its violent protests and drive to “defund the police” which may have proved counter-productive for the Democrats given that most black voters want more law and order, not less.
A Gallup poll from July showed that 81 per cent of black Americans wanted to see police presence in their neighbourhoods to remain the same or increase. Only 19 per cent wanted to see fewer police.
The surge in non-white votes for Trump wasn’t evident in the spectacularly wrong polling. Talking about the polls they weren’t just wrong, they were wrong in the same direction every single time.
Given how close the election was one has to wonder whether the polling depressed the Trump vote in key states such as Wisconsin. Before the election major polls had Biden winning the swing state by up to 17 per cent.
Democrats dominated the postal votes while Republican voted en masse on election day but how many Trump supporters decided not to waste hours lining up in the cold given their man was so far behind.
In the end Biden won Wisconsin with less than half a per cent, or around 20,000 votes. As this column goes to print we still don’t have a clear result, though Biden is the hot favourite to be the next president.
What is a near certainty is that the election will end up in the courts.
IN SHORT
Will President Trump run again in 2024 if Biden prevails? It may seem far-fetched but don’t count it out. The Constitution allows it and Trump’s base will demand it. Trump will be 78 which may seem too old but Biden will be turning 78 this month.
Rita Panahi is in the US with Sky News.
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