www.foxnews.com
Democratic strategists respond to conservative Latino swing to GOP: 'They don't like socialists'
Several Democratic strategists told Fox News Digital that rising crime and the party's embrace of the far left have played roles in the Latino community's shift to the GOP.
Politics
Democratic strategists spoke with Fox News Digital about a poll showing a massive shift by conservative Latinos from the Democratic Party to the GOP and said that crime, treating Latino voters as single-issue voters and the embrace of the far-left have played roles in the shift.
According to polling from NBC News, Telemundo and the Wall Street Journal, 49% of self-described conservative Latinos preferred Democrats to control Congress, 9 points more than Republicans. In September 2022, 73% of conservative Latinos support Republicans in Congress as opposed to 17% who prefer Democrats, a 56-point GOP advantage.
"They don't like the socialists," Hank Sheinkopf, veteran Democratic political consultant and president of Sheinkopf Communications, told Fox News Digital about the Latino community. "They don't like the abortion argument being thrust at them on a constant basis. They don’t like the crime. They don’t like the chaos. And they’re responding."
Sheinkopf added that Democrats "always" do worse than they think they are going to do when "chaos" is occurring in the United States and warned that Democrats are "failing to understand" that abortion is not the "end-all be-all."
"Crime and chaos take over, and the economy," Sheinkopf said, adding that historically the party in power always struggles when there is economic chaos or a perceived crime problem.
"So now you're having a nationwide uptick in crime," Sheinkopf said. "Homicides are up. Who pays the price for circumstances like that? The party in power."
Democratic strategist Jennifer Holdsworth told Fox News Digital the poll is a "bit of an outlier" but acknowledged that Democrats should focus on issues besides immigration when speaking to the Latino community, especially in border counties where Republicans have made significant gains with Hispanic voters in recent years.