While evidence from California suggests that group threat mobilizes Latinos, nationally, there has never been a test case for this theory. In 2016, the Trump campaign provided a clear case of group threat through his divisive rhetoric and policy proposals targeting Mexican Americans and immigrants. Using the 2016 Collaborative Multi-Racial Post-Election Survey (CMPS) data, we find evidence that Latino voters were politically motivated by Trump’s anti-Latino rhetoric. We hypothesize that Latino voters who perceive Latinos as a racialized group and feel a sense of immigrant-linked fate are more likely to hold negative views toward the Republican candidate, and feel angry during the 2016 election. We further find that Latino voters who were angry were more likely to engage in political activities such as donating to campaigns, contacting government officials, and protesting during and shortly after the 2016 election. The findings hold for U.S. born Latinos as well as among non-Mexican Latinos who felt similarly targeted by Trump’s rhetoric and proposals.

Latino-majority congressional districts are far more likely to elect Latino representatives to Congress than majority-white districts. However, not all majority-Latino districts do so. This paper addresses this question and it investigates how the level of influence of political parties and interest groups in majority-Latino districts substantially shape Latino representation to the U.S. House of Representatives. I rely on five case studies and a dataset of candidates to open congressional races with a Latino population plurality from 2004-2014. The evidence indicates that groups and political networks are critical for Latino/a candidate recruitment, the organization of resources in a congressional district, the deployment of campaign resources on behalf of certain candidates and the eventual success of Latino candidates. The findings suggest that Latino descriptive and substantive representation are shaped by the wielding influence of political parties and interest groups.

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What motivated Latinos to turnout in 2020 in the middle of a global health pandemic that has devastated their community financially, physically and mentally? How might we explain Latino support for each one of the Presidential candidates in the context of these crises? In this paper, we tackle these questions through an investigation of the factors that drove Latino turnout in 2020 and what might explain Latino favorability for Joe Biden and Donald Trump. To contextualize these findings, we compare these results to the 2016 election. We find that the most predictive factors of Latino turnout in 2020 were perceived group discrimination and mobilization efforts by campaigns and other organizations. We also find that Latino candidate preference in 2020 can be best explained by issue prioritization. Latinos for whom the economy was the most important issue were more likely to support Donald Trump. However, Latinos for whom COVID-19 and racism towards the Latino community were the top pressing political priorities were more likely to favor Joe Biden. These findings continue to shed light on the diversity and heterogeneity of the Latino vote and speak to the significance of outreach efforts by political parties, candidates and community organizations.