Why Blue Border Counties Flipped for Trump

RIO GRANDE CITY, Texas—President-elect Donald Trump shattered the South Texas blue wall, winning over Hispanics in border counties that haven’t voted Republican in more than a century.

South Texas is home to some of the largest Hispanic populations in the country, with many being Catholic.

The Latinos there have deep roots in Texas, with many calling themselves Tejanos, or Texans of Spanish descent.

Though Texas is generally considered a red state, the Rio Grande Valley and border counties have been a Democratic stronghold for generations.

This election signaled a seismic shift.

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10/26/2024

This year, 58 percent of voters broke a 130-year blue streak and selected Trump, turning the county red for the first time since 1892 when Latinos voted for Benjamin Harrison.

Trump won 51 percent of the vote there, marking the first time a Republican presidential candidate won the county since William Howard Taft in 1912.

“Trump is no saint by any stretch of the word, but he at least gave us stability during his tenure w/o wars all around the world. I believe you might start seeing local races turn red as well,” she wrote.

It seems the sentiments began to shift even before this election.

Gilberto Hinojosa, longtime chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, announced his resignation days after the election.

The soul-searching began for a party that believed it could flip Texas blue as the Latino population grew.

“Voters sent a clear message to our party and our country that they want our leaders to talk to them about issues that they care about most, including the economy.”

South Texas Latinos speaking with The Epoch Times said the Democrats tend to lump them all together, not taking into account their differences across the country, especially in Texas, where they tend to be more conservative.

They said they voted for Trump because they wanted change.

“The Democratic party left us,” said 59-year-old Roel Reyes, one of several GOP precinct chairs interviewed in Starr County.

“Our new motto is: Can you hear us now?” said retired Army Coln. Ross Barrera, another GOP precinct chair.

South Texas Latinos who spoke to The Epoch Times said they embrace traditional values of family, faith, and country. They dislike cultural Marxism and the far-left agenda that they said has been adopted by the Democratic party leadership.

Some said that food prices were high but Democrats kept telling them how good the economy was.

They said Democrats assumed Texas Hispanics liked open borders, which they said was a miscalculation.

On the Saturday following the election, Latinos in Starr County organized a victory Trump train around Rio Grande City.

Marcus Canales, a GOP county chairman, and several other Trump supporters were relaxing at the local Wings and Rings eatery to continue their celebration.

They said high prices at the grocery store and gas pump also moved people to Trump’s side of the ledger.

Trump’s support for oil and gas also helped him, they said, since many people in the area work in the Texas energy sector.

Canales said that for the past four years, the citizens here have seen illegal immigrants coming across the border and loaded onto unmarked buses.

Most people know someone who has died of fentanyl trafficked through this part of the Texas border, according to the group of Trump supporters.

“It pours in here like water almost,” Canales said, describing the fentanyl trade.

“​​I mean, that’s how bad it is, as well as illegal immigrants pouring out into the rest of the country.”

Reyes said he believes Democrats expect Latinos to vote for them regardless of their policies.

Barrera said the GOP held voter registration drives and became more visible in the community and on social media to grow the Trump movement.

For a long time, Starr County participated in the South Texas practice of paying operatives called “politiqueras” to get out the vote.

In Starr County, everyone knew a free chicken dinner awaited those who voted for the correct candidates, Barrera said.

South Texas Blues

With close to half of the voters supporting Harris, not everyone was happy with Trump’s victory on the border.

Jorge Arellano, 68, has voted for Democrats most of his life. The last Republican he voted for was George W. Bush.

He thinks Trump’s win in Starr County was an anomaly, and the county will revert to its Democratic roots.

With the border showing up as a significant concern to Republicans, Arellano questioned why Trump would kill the bipartisan bill that Democrats said was to secure the border.

Republicans said at the time they scuttled the bill because of loopholes that would have done little to close the border.

Arellano said that illegal immigrants are suitable for the economy because they take jobs that Americans don’t want, such as picking crops.

“I don’t blame them for wanting a better life,” he said of illegal border crossers.

Arellano said he agreed with the Democrats’ accusation of Trump being a “threat to democracy” who did little for the country.

He takes issue with the idea that America needs fixing. “America’s always been great,” he said.

Arellano doesn’t buy the idea that Trump will help the economy either because he thinks Trump is the problem.

Arellano said Trump took credit for a good economy he inherited from former President Barack Obama.

Likewise, he said, President Joe Biden had to deal with a lousy economy that Trump created.

As for inflation, it hasn’t hurt him that much. He attributed the high cost of eating out to pay increases for workers who deserve a livable wage.

On the Saturday following the election, hundreds of Trump supporters gathered for a Trump train celebration in Hidalgo County, which went red for the first time since Richard Nixon was elected in 1972.

The caravan of vehicles, decked out in Trump signs and flags, paraded through city streets as supporters honked their horns.

It was the culmination of more than a year’s work for Gary Groves, who began organizing the Trump trains in the McAllen area in May of 2023.

At first, only a few vehicles showed up. Since August, hundreds of vehicles have participated in the rallies every Saturday leading up to the election, he told The Epoch Times.

On Nov. 9, the caravan of perhaps 100 vehicles stretched an estimated five miles, he said.

Felix Cano, a 42-year-old veteran who moved from California to Hidalgo County in 2019, was at the parking lot of Aces BBQ in McAllen in the back of his pickup truck to celebrate Trump’s win.

Cano said he grew up a Democrat because his family raised him that way.

He remembers voting for Al Gore in 2000, who lost to George W. Bush. Fast-forward 16 years and he voted for Trump—the first time he had ever voted Republican. Cano said he voted for Trump in 2020 too but wasn’t outspoken about it like he is now.

This year, Cano said he felt America needed Trump back in office more than ever.

With a family of six, he keeps a tight rein on spending by tracking grocery expenditures on a spreadsheet to help maintain a budget. In the past four years under the Biden-Harris administration, his grocery bill has gone from $600 to $1,000 per month to feed his family, he said.

After he retired from the military, he began sharing his opinions on social media, which caused a rift between him and some family members, he said.

He said the government was using the Department of Justice against Trump to “stop him at all costs.”

“We don’t want to be a communist country,” he added.

His wife, Jennifer Cano, 39, said she has been on the fence for a while, listening to both sides. She said the final straw for her was the Democrat’s stance on transgender ideology.

Thinking about her daughters, she said she voted for Trump because he was against men who identify as women using women’s bathrooms.

Dodging a Bullet

David Garcia, 60, is a born-again Christian who works as a mechanic for the U.S. Border Patrol. He has also voted for Trump three times.

“I know we’re going to get better with Trump. We were doing real good,” he said.

Illegal immigration has been a huge issue in his community, he said.

He said Latinos in border states are tired of the double standard, where they see illegal immigrants getting things like free housing and education while U.S. citizens struggle financially.

Garcia said helping his children get a college education is challenging because the cost of everything, such as the computers needed for school, is too expensive.

“Both my kids are struggling,” he said. “They [illegal immigrants] come in and get everything for free.”

Garcia, who has a side business working on air conditioners, said the illegal immigrants coming in undercut his price. Now, he makes a lot less money.

“I can’t give a decent price because they come and do it for nothing,” Garcia said.

Jesus Alonzo is a 72-year-old veteran who also voted for Trump the three times the president-elect ran. He said he likes that the president-elect mentions God when he campaigns.

The McAllen resident said he thinks Trump’s brush with death from an assassin’s bullet changed him and made him more humble.

His 65-year-old wife, Delia Alonzo, said she believes Trump was “prophesied” to become president.

Several Hispanics who spoke to The Epoch Times before the election said they were switching to Trump.

Minerva Perez, 82, was one of them. She lives in Brownsville with family about five miles from the Mexican border and had voted for Democrats all her life.

The past four years have changed her mind about Trump.

“I want changes,” she said. “I’m going to vote Republican.”

Whether the trend will stick in the future is hard to say, since several border counties split their ticket. Cameron County voted Democrats in some races while choosing Trump to be the president.

“I’m still in depression,” he said. “We didn’t move fast enough in the justice system, so now he’s president.”

Gutierrez, a lifelong Democrat, said he was tired of hearing people complain about gas prices and the economy.

He pointed to Biden’s successful navigating of a tough economic landscape in the aftermath of the pandemic. Now, inflation is down and so is gas.

As for the jump in grocery prices, Gutierrez said people need to make less expensive choices. Meat is costly now, he said, with fajita meat at the local HEB grocery store hovering at $10 per pound.

“Fajitas—I’m saving for quinceaneras,” he said of the traditional Hispanic celebration of girls turning 15.

On the other hand, Republicans accuse Democrats of using lawfare to stop their political rival.

For Gutierrez, he sees the typically blue county’s lurch to the right as a normal cycle in politics.

“It’s yin and yang; it goes in cycles,” he said.