What Draws Latinos to the Trump-Era GOP?
November 1, 2024
At age 9, Mike Madrid knew he was a Republican.
Growing up in Moorpark, California, the future political consultant saw firsthand what he calls the “Latinization of America”—a push and pull of cultures out of which emerged a powerful Latino voting bloc. And yet, while the “most rapidly emerging voter group in the country is quantifiably telling the political parties what it needs to hear,” Madrid writes in The Latino Century that “both parties summarily dismiss those concerns because they believe they understand these voters better than those voters understand themselves.”
Madrid’s new book explores developments within the Latino electorate while also recounting his own political coming-of-age story. It’s an autobiography about how his political present has been shaped by a blended cultural past, as well as an account of the peaks and valleys of Latino political strategy. The first half of his book describes Madrid’s rise from a local congressional campaign volunteer in California to an adviser for George W. Bush’s presidential campaign. But The Latino Century also offers a critique of what Madrid—a co-founder of the Lincoln Project—views as the death spiral of the Republican Party due to Donald Trump’s political rise….