Although Democrats enjoy an advantage with Hispanic voters in local and national elections, that support has waned since former President Barack Obama left office.
The percentage of Latino voters who cast their vote for a Democrat in a presidential election has steadily declined since 2012, when Obama was elected to a second term with 71% of the Hispanic vote, according to national exit polling data compiled by the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research. That figure has gradually decreased, with Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton garnering 66% of the Hispanic vote in 2016 and President Joe Biden capturing 65% in 2020.
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Comparatively, Republicans made steady gains coinciding with Trump entering the political realm. The former president stunned Democrats with the inroads he made with Hispanic voters in 2020, garnering 32% of the voting bloc — the highest percentage a Republican presidential candidate has earned since George W. Bush in 2004, the data show.
Republican support among Hispanic voters peaked during the 2004 presidential election, when 44% of Latinos voted for Bush, although some scholars have argued the exit polling from that year slightly overstates Bush’s Hispanic support.
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Democratic support from the Hispanic population peaked with former President Jimmy Carter, according to the Roper data. Carter garnered 82% of the Latino vote in 1976, at a time when Latinos only made up 2% of the voting electorate. His Latino support fell to just 56% during his reelection bid in 1980. Since then, support has remained anywhere between 60% and 70%, with the exception of only 53% voting for Democratic candidate John Kerry in 2004.
Latinos made up 13% of the voting electorate in 2020.
