Are Latinos the new soccer moms?
With emotions still raw, and finger pointing and head scratching continuing over the 2024 election and the Latino vote, that is not a flippant question.
Winning the “soccer mom” vote was the obsession of 1996-era politics, with candidates Bill Clinton and Bob Dole both believing that white, middle- to upper-class, suburban women with kids in weekend soccer matches were the key to winning an election.
They weren’t wrong. Soccer moms are still politically alluring.
But in the aftermath of the 2024 election, Latinos are positioned to become a coveted swing vote.
And, ironically, their emerging allure has nothing to do with soccer or skin color — and certainly not because they all reside in economically “comfortable” suburbs.
The soccer-moms analogy is not to discount political pundits who question the motivation for a larger percentage of traditionally Democratic Latinos voting Republican in the 2024 election, and thereby seemingly voting against their own interest and community by breaking for Donald Trump.
After all, the bombastic presidential candidate vowed to launch the largest deportation program of undocumented immigrants in U.S. history.
Trump long has called immigrants murderers, rapists and drug smugglers, and more recently, pet carnivores. Yet, many Latinos still voted for him — apparently, not taking him at his word, except for his promise to lower prices on gas and groceries.
It was largely a vote out of necessity, not political ideology. But it still produced a seismic change in our future political landscape.
Latinos, who were hit especially hard by inflation between 2020 and 2024, wanted change and voted with their wallets and purses in mind.........