MAGA Is Eating Its Own |
As Donald Trump was swept back into power in 2024, there were few politicians who embodied the new era of MAGA more than María Elvira Salazar, the Cuban American representative from Miami.
A proud Republican who derided socialism and lavished praise on Trump, she first flipped her seat in 2020, which knocked out Donna Shalala, who had spent decades in the highest reaches of the Clinton orbit. Salazar’s triumph was narrow, but her margins of victory only widened in 2022 and 2024, when she crushed her Democratic rival by more than 20 points. Salazar represented the new Miami, the red Miami. Here was the hard-right swing for Spanish-speaking voters the Republican Party hoped to cement in the second Trump term.
Now that project is on the verge of collapsing altogether. Trump’s approval rating is cratering with Latino voters as it is with most Americans. They are restless about the economy — persistent inflation, the softer job market — and alienated by his savage immigration policies, which have gone far beyond mere border enforcement and even led to the deaths of two Americans in Minneapolis. Democrats are not guaranteed to win all these voters back, but it is obvious now the Trump GOP will not be solidifying any sort of realignment. Latinos are free agents.
Salazar, a former Telemundo........