THE BLUE TSUNAMI WAS CAUSED BY A LATINO EARTHQUAKE.
asserted
TSUNAMI → cause → EARTHQUAKE
Two years after helping Donald Trump return to the presidency, Latino voters swung hard toward the Democrats and played a decisive role in the national repudiation of MAGA.
asserted
voters → help → MAGA
There were lots of reasons why—but the administration’s immigration policy was a big one.
asserted
policy → be → reasons
Poll after poll this year showed Americans, including Latinos, were motivated to vote by the cost of living and a desire to curb the president’s corruption.
asserted
Americans → show → corruption
But my reporting both before and after Tuesday’s election suggests that Latino fury at ICE and the Republican deportation agenda proved to be a powerful motivator.
uncertain
fury → suggest → ICE
“Theres definitely a response that people are having to the abuse of ICE, you see that whether that’s in Texas or Florida where Latinos switched strongly back,” Sen. Ruben Gallego told me on election night.
asserted
Gallego → s → night
“It’s obvious some had to do with the economy, but a lot had to do with Latinos targeted by ICE.”
asserted
lot → ’ → ICE
Hispanic voters understood Trump to be opposed to immigrant crime, but over the past two years, Latinos in America experienced degrading levels of racial profiling.
asserted
Latinos → understand → profiling
It went beyond the racial profiling you might expect from law enforcement looking for criminals, Gallego said.
uncertain
Gallego → go → criminals
He pointed to the Supreme Court’s toleration of racial profiling—the so-called “Kavanaugh stops”—that “allowed going to workplaces known to hire Latinos, if you’re speaking Spanish in particular, giving license to target Latinos for being Latinos.
asserted
you → point → Latinos
Recognizing this boiling frustration, Democratic consultant Chuck Rocha, who worked on two dozen races across the nation, told me his firm ran only three kinds of ads this cycle: ads about the cost of living, ads about corruption, and ads about ICE.
asserted
firm → recognize → ICE
His firm creates everything from bilingual mailers to radio spots and Spanish-language TV ads—working in all those media and multiple languages, the ads must be focused on the top-performing issues.
asserted
ads → create → issues
“In every working-class community in America, you saw people move back toward Democrats who were super mad that going to war drove up the costs of gas and diesel, and trade wars brought up the cost of everyday goods,” Rocha said.
asserted
Rocha → see → goods
“But in the Latino community, there was that same economic anxiety in addition to fear that your father is going to be picked up and beat up by masked federal agents because he’s brown.”
asserted
he → be → agents
SANITY WINS FLASH SALE:
Celebrate with 20% OFF Bulwark+ for the next year.
asserted
SANITY → win → year
LET’S MAKE SOMETHING OF IT.
asserted
’S → let → IT
The blue wave that washed away Greg Abbott’s three-term governorship in Texas making Gina Hinojosa the first Latina governor in the state’s history also saw James Talarico defeat the scandal-riddled Ken Paxton.
asserted
Talarico → wash → Paxton
And here, too, it was fueled by a historic Hispanic backlash against MAGA.
asserted
it → fuel → MAGA
Talarico outperformed expectations to such an extent that journalists and data gurus had to reach for unbelievable comparisons to properly contextualize how he did.
asserted
he → outperform → comparisons
In Cameron County, where nearly nine in ten voters are Hispanic, Talarico performed better than Democrats have in South Texas since the 1930s, when the party represented something very different in the South.
asserted
party → perform → South
A Texas Tribune reporter described FDR-level support in places like Hidalgo County, which is 92 percent Latino.
asserted
which → describe → County
In Starr County, 97 percent Latino, Talarico executed a more than 70-point swing.
asserted
Talarico → execute → swing
Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) highlighted that turnout in the Rio Grande Valley exceeded that of 2024.
asserted
turnout → highlight → 2024
“For a lot of people, that’s their everyday life, but they’re a resilient and resourceful community that figures out how to get by in tough economies,” he told me.
asserted
he → ’ → me
“But we haven’t seen this huge a Latino voter surge before.
asserted
we → see → surge
Talarico also put his money where his mouth was, his adviser Rocha said, spending more money communicating to Hispanics over the last year than anyone in the history of Texas politics.
asserted
Rocha → put → politics
The spend included $5 million on TV during the primary, an “unprecedented” $1 million on World Cup ads, and an additional $10 million during the fall campaign, putting Talarico’s total at more than $16 million on television alone.
asserted
spend → include → television
Rosa Mendoza, who worked on the outside Lone Star Rising PAC supporting Talarico, said the Democrat embraced a trend she saw in her polling: While the economy was the top issue, voters wanted someone ready to fight on immigration—not necessarily a reflexively anti-ICE candidate, but someone vocal about the immorality of ICE’s extreme actions.
asserted
voters → work → actions
Talarico threaded the needle well, using biblically inflected language about welcoming “the stranger” while keeping “people out who mean to do us harm,” but also describing ICE as a “secret police force of masked men in unmarked vehicles kidnapping children off our streets”—remarkably frank language for a Texas Democrat.
asserted
who → thread → Democrat
When he spoke about the killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, he called him a “fellow Texan” and “child of God” who embodied the American Dream and deserves justice.
asserted
who → speak → justice
Talarico ignored the fear some Democrats had of being viewed as a defund-ICE candidate, choosing instead to reflect the sentiments many Latino (and other) Texans were feeling about ICE.
asserted
Texans → ignore → ICE
“It’s part of the reason Latinos do view him differently,” Mendoza said.
asserted
Mendoza → ’ → him
Talarico said the “legitimate part out loud: this is secret police, an organization that has the highest taxpayer funded budget, more than the FBI, and yet has zero accountability or transparency into how they’re going about roundups.
asserted
they → say → roundups
Red States Have Immigrants, Too
Rocha said ICE motivated voters even in traditionally red states: His firm ran Spanish-language ads emphasizing the issue in both the Kansas and Nebraska U.S. Senate races and Texas’s 15th Congressional District, where Tejano singer Bobby Pulido unseated Rep. Monica De La Cruz, despite the latter’s efforts to showcase her immigration bona fides.
asserted
Pulido → have → fides
Rocha’s firm hammered Trump’s extremism on immigration in TX-15, emphasizing not just De La Cruz’s complicity in the mass deportation agenda, but her specific votes to fund ICE.
asserted
firm → hammer → ICE
One particular ad amplified the story of the Gámez-Cuéllar family, in which three South Texas brothers and mariachi players were taken by ICE but released after bipartisan pressure, including from Pulido and De La Cruz.
asserted
brothers → amplify → Pulido
The ad contended that De La Cruz not only failed to challenge ICE, but actively funded it.
asserted
Cruz → contend → it
“The idea is she says she’s helping you as your representative but doing something different with her vote, which led to these mariachi kids getting detained,” Luis Alcauter, a partner in Rocha’s firm, told me.
asserted
Alcauter → say → me
The ad ran on English-language local TV, local Spanish-language TV, and on digital media.
asserted
ad → run → media
Rocha’s firm produced a second immigration-related hit on De La Cruz, this one featuring a retired sheriff who said he had never seen anything like Trump’s anti-immigrant crackdown in his entire career.
asserted
he → produce → career
…and 31 more, not listed.
The Aporia
