MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Let's look at another interesting finding. More Latino men voted Republican this year, accounting for some of Donald Trump's gains in critical swing states. To hear more about this, we called Mark Hugo Lopez. He's the director of race and ethnicity research at the Pew Research Center. Good morning to you.

MARK HUGO LOPEZ: Good morning.

MARTIN: So the first question I have is did Trump bring in new Latino voters, people who had not previously participated or perhaps participated sort of occasionally, or were these committed voters who basically defected from the Democrats? Is there any way to know?

LOPEZ: It's a combination of a little bit of both of those stories. On the one hand, there are many new first-time voters for Latinos because we have so many new Latinos being able to vote for the first time. They've come of age. They've entered adulthood. But it also looks like there has been a shift among Latinos, and this is something that's been going on for some time. It's not new to this election, but we've been seeing Trump do better with Latino voters in 2020 compared to '16, and also now it looks like in 2024 compared to 2020.

MARTIN: And one of the reasons this is so interesting, of course, is that, you know, Donald Trump's sort of public career as a candidate has been marked by comments and behavior that many people find demeaning. I mean, his first run for office, referring to immigrants as, you know, rapists and murderers, saying Mexico is not sending our best. You know, when Puerto Rico suffered this devastating hurricane, he was sort of seen throwing paper towels at people. And then, of course, there was that - the now-infamous rally at Madison Square Garden, where one of the opening acts said some things we don't need to repeat anymore. So then a lot of people look at that and think, gee, how is this possible that he's actually improved his standing among these voters? What do you say to that?

LOPEZ: Well, if you look at the exit poll, if you look at a lot of other polls right before the election, it was really the economy, the rise of inflation, prices for food and other goods, housing prices as well, which Latinos continued to point to. And they pointed to Donald Trump as being the better candidate, or at least they were split on whether or not Harris or Trump are the better candidate on economics.

So in many ways, there are other issues that Latinos are concerned about. But our surveys prior to this election have regularly shown that Latinos have different points of view and sometimes even perhaps conflicting points of view on immigration policy. For example, you'll find that about one-third of Latinos say to improve the situation at the border you need - we need to have an increase in deportation to people who are in the country illegally. But at the same time, you'll find that the majority of Latinos want a pathway to citizenship or some sort of support for those who are in the country living here already illegally. So that kind of gets at some of the different viewpoints here, and Trump was able to resonate with Latinos on a number of things. And remember, it's Latinos who are U.S. citizens and who are eligible to vote who participate in elections in the United States.

MARTIN: Important to remember that Latinos - we shouldn't have to say this, but we will say it - they are not a monolith.

LOPEZ: Yeah.

MARTIN: And people have lots of different pathways to being in the United States and having histories here. My colleague, Steve Inskeep, has a question for you.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Yeah. Mark, I was thinking about a voter that I interviewed a couple of years ago. She was a Mexican immigrant getting ready to vote for the first time, didn't have a lot of political knowledge, she said, but the one issue she had in her head was something about trans kids in schools. And I think about the ads that...

LOPEZ: Yeah.

INSKEEP: ...Trump ran on trans people this year. Did cultural issues like that play a large role in bringing Latinos over to his side?

LOPEZ: Whether it's a large role or not, I think we need more data to be able to determine that. But for some Latino voters, that may have been an important issue that did bring them over to Trump. But I think we need to do a little bit more research to figure out what exactly happened with regards to different issues and how important they were. No doubt, Latinos have tended to be somewhat more conservative on these issues than other Americans.

MARTIN: Before we let you go, Mark, the Latino vote for years has been called a sleeping giant. I mean, is the giant awake now?

LOPEZ: I don't know if the giant is awake now or not, but it certainly seems that Latinos, just as a group now, are rivalling Black Americans as - in size and importance in elections. And this election cycle showed in so many states - so many of the battleground states, Latinos were important in just about every one of them.

MARTIN: That is Mark Hugo Lopez with the Pew Research Center. Mark, thanks so much for joining us.

LOPEZ: Thank you.

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