Whatever happened to the Latino vote as the US elected Trump?

In the days ahead of the US presidential election, some analysts who were convinced of Donald Trump’s defeat believed he had lost every option of becoming president when he called undocumented Mexican migrants “rapists” in June 2015 as he launched his bid for the White House.The prevailing view was that no one can win a US presidential election without significant support from the Latino community.Mitt Romney, a Republican like Trump, got 27% of the Hispanic vote against Barack Obama in 2012.That was the lowest percentage for a Republican among Latinos, and he lost.US media estimated that Trump got 28% of the Hispanic vote when he won Tuesday’s election.Early voting figures were high in the run-up to the election, and voting centres in crucial states like Nevada and Florida, where Latinos make up 28 and 24 of the population respectively, showed long queues of Hispanics awaiting their turn to cast their ballots.The Hispanic firewall, some called it.There are currently more Latinos than African-Americans in the United States, and that group is growing faster than any other.Since the 2012 election, the number of citizens of Hispanic origin registered to vote had increased by 4mn, and a total of 27.3mn were called to the polls.That amounted to 12 of the registered voter total, a historic proportion.Hillary Clinton’s campaign tried very hard to mobilise those potential voters.Trump, with his attacks and his promises to deport more than 11mn undocumented migrants who are currently in the United States, most of them Mexicans, was believed to have done his share.There was talk of waking a “Hispanic giant” of high turnout rates in a minority that has traditionally stayed away from the polls.What happened on Tuesday then, when a candidate with a clearly discriminatory discourse became president-elect?Most Hispanics are in states that already traditionally favour the Democrats, so a high turnout for Clinton in those states did not change much.Most of them (about 15mn, 38.6% of the population) are in California, which is historically a Democratic state.Something similar applies to New York, with 4.8mn Latinos (24.1%). However, Texas, which holds slightly over 10.4mn Hispanics (38.6%), remained a Republican state.Clinton did win Nevada, one of the crucial swing states that were regarded as still up for grabs ahead of the election.New Mexico also went to Clinton, but Arizona and Texas, two states that would also potentially hold the wall that Trump said he wants to build along the Mexican border, voted for the Republican candidate.Trump won the key state of Florida because the Hispanic vote there was split in two: Cubans, who have traditionally supported the Republicans, supported Trump, while Puerto Ricans are believed to have favoured Clinton.In Florida, the Republican candidate mobilised the vote of white men above the age of 45 and especially above 65, political scientist Eduardo Gamarra, of Florida International University, said.And yet, according to the preliminary official results of the election, Trump would have attained the 270 electors he needed to become president-elect even without Florida.