MIAMI (AP) — From Pennsylvania to Florida to Texas, areas with high numbers of Hispanics often had little in common on Election Day other than backing Republicans. donald trump about democrat Kamala Harris for president.

Trump, the president-elect, ventured into predominantly Puerto Rican areas of eastern Pennsylvania, where the vice president spent the last full day of her campaign. Trump transformed South Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, a decades-old Democratic stronghold populated by both new immigrants and Texans who have roots in the state for generations.

He also improved his standing among Hispanic voters along Florida’s Interstate 4 corridor that links the Tampa Bay area (home to people of Cuban, Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, Colombian and Puerto Rican origin) with Orlando, where Puerto Ricans They represent about 43% of the local Hispanic population. population. Trump was the first Republican since 1988 to win Miami-Dade County, home to a sizable Cuban population and the metropolitan area in the country with the highest proportion of immigrants.

It was a realignment that, if sustained, could change American politics.

Texas and Florida are already reliably Republican, but more Hispanics turning away from Democrats in future presidential elections could further damage the party’s “blue wall” in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, which had helped catapult it to the House. White before Trump triumphed in all three. this time. The change could even make it harder for Democrats to win in the West, in states like Arizona and Nevada.

Harris attempted to highlight ways Trump may have insulted or threatened Latinos.

Trump, in his first term, restricted the use of Temporary protected statusthat Democratic President Joe Biden extended to thousands of Venezuelansand tried to end the Obama era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. he too delayed the launch of humanitarian aid to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria in 2017 until almost the end of his term, after long criticizing the island’s officials as corrupt and inept.

Once he returns to the White House, Trump has promised to organize the largest deportation operation in the history of the United States. That could affect millions of families in mixed-status households, where people who are in the United States illegally live with U.S. citizens or people with legal residency.

But Democratic warnings did not appear to reach enough voters for Harris. Now the party must figure out how to win back votes from a critical and fast-growing group.

“Trump is a very confusing figure,” said Abel Prado, a Democratic operative and pollster who serves as executive director of the advocacy group Cambio Texas. “We have no idea how to organize against him. We have no idea how to respond. We have no idea how not to take the bait.”

Ultimately, concerns about immigration did not resonate as much as pocketbook issues among many Hispanics.

About 7 in 10 Hispanic voters were “very concerned” about the cost of food and groceries, slightly more than about two-thirds of voters overall, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 voters nationwide. country. Nearly two-thirds of Hispanic voters said they were “very concerned” about their housing costs, compared to about half of voters overall.

Trump had a clear lead among Hispanic voters who were “very concerned” about the cost of food. Half said they would handle the economy better, compared to about 4 in 10 for Harris. Among Hispanic voters who were very concerned about crime in their community, Trump had a similar lead.

“When they looked at both candidates, they saw who could improve our economy and quality of life,” said Marcela Díaz-Myers, a Colombian immigrant who headed a Hispanic outreach task force for the Pennsylvania Republican Party. “Did he sometimes offend? Yes. But that happens in political campaigns. “Many of the people who voted for President Trump were able to overcome this and trust that he will lead the country in the right direction.”

Harris promised to lower grocery prices in Crack down on corporate price gouging and increase federal funding for first-time homebuyers. Additionally, recent violent crime rates have rejected in many parts of the country.

Shen also spent many of the final days of the campaign trying to capitalize on comments from a comedian who spoke at a Trump rally in New York and joked that Puerto Rico was a “floating island of garbage.” He even relied on Puerto Rican celebrities, from bad bunny to Jennifer Lopez – to denounce racism.

However, Trump gained ground in some of the areas with the highest concentrations of Puerto Ricans in Pennsylvania, the state where Harris spent more time campaigning than any other. He won Berks, Monroe and Luzerne counties, and lost Lehigh County by fewer than 5,000 votes to Harris. Biden had won it by almost three times that margin in 2020.