Danny Diaz wasn’t shocked when he heard about the Republican surge along the Texas-Mexico border that confounded so many national pundits last week. The majority Latino region has long been a Democratic stronghold, communities there have been ravaged by COVID-19, and polls indicate widespread disapproval of Donald Trump’s border wall. Yet local organizers like Diaz, the get-out-the-vote coordinator for Rio Grande Valley nonprofit La Unión del Pueblo Entero (LUPE), sensed days and weeks ahead of the election that the region would turn out for Trump.
Even as local turnout surged, border counties largely shifted right, shrinking Democrats’ margins of victory in the presidential race and in key Congressional and state races. Starr County, one of the poorest in the U.S. and with the highest share of Hispanic residents, had the biggest shift. Barack Obama won by 73 points in 2012. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won by 60. This year, Joe Biden led by just five points. Local Democratic Congressman Vicente Gonzalez, who handily won re-election last cycle, hung onto his seat by less than three points.
“Hopefully this is a wake-up call for the state and national party that it cannot take the Latino community in South Texas for granted,” says Gonzalez, who believes the presidential race impacted his own narrow margin of victory and other local down-ballot races. “I think the party at the state and national level should’ve been investing more in communicating and knocking on doors.”
