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      in US Politics

      Texas Republicans pushing slate of bills to make voting even harder in state

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      Texas Republicans are pushing new legislation that would make it even more difficult to cast a ballot in a state that is already one of the hardest places to vote in America.Sign up for the Guardian’s Fight to Vote newsletterThere was no evidence of widespread fraud in Texas or elsewhere in 2020, but Governor Greg Abbott in February declared “election integrity” an emergency item for the legislature to consider.Bills introduced so far would prohibit counties from allowing drive-thru voting, curtail early voting hours, restrict the number of voting machines allowed at countywide polling centers, and block local election officials from sending out mail-in ballot applications to all voters. One bill would also make it easier for prosecutors to bring charges against Texans for technical violations and require those who cite a disability to vote by mail – one of a handful of approved excuses in Texas – to provide proof. Such a requirement would amount to a poll tax, critics say, because there is a cost to a doctor’s visit.“These exact kinds of lies about voting led to people dying in the insurrection at the Capitol. This goes way beyond politicians playing legislative chess to retain power,” Anthony Gutierrez, the executive director of the Texas chapter of Common Cause, a watchdog group, wrote in an email.Texas saw record turnout in the 2020 election, but still had one of the lowest turnout rates among eligible voters in the US. Many of the Republican bills appear aimed at Harris county, the state’s most populous and home to 2.4 million voters, where county officials took a number of creative steps last year to try to expand access to voting. That included setting up 24-hour drive-thru voting and trying to send a mail-in ballot application to all voters.But Republicans went to court to block those measures in the weeks leading up to the election. Abbott issued a proclamation in October only allowing counties to offer a single absentee ballot drop box. The order meant that Harris county, which stretches over nearly 2,000 sq miles, could only have a single drop box location instead of the 11 it intended to offer.Abbott pointed specifically to Harris county’s efforts to expand voting access during a Monday press conference introducing the new restrictive voting bills.“The integrity of elections in 2020 were questioned right here in Harris county with the mail-in ballot application process,” Abbott said. “The county elections clerk attempted to send unsolicited mail-in ballot applications to millions of voters, many of whom would not be eligible to vote by mail. Election officials should be working to stop potential mail ballot fraud, not facilitate it.”Isabel Longoria, a Harris county election official credited with developing the 24-hour drive-thru voting, blasted the proposals.“To micromanage the creative solutions that we have had to come up with in Harris county under the auspices of some false election integrity narrative, is a bill not based in reality,” she said in an interview.The Republican proposals come amid a wave of similar efforts in state legislatures across the country. But the restrictions in Texas are notable for two reasons. First, Texas already has extremely restrictive voting laws – it doesn’t allow voters to register online (there is currently a limited workaround because of a federal lawsuit), requires voters under 65 to provide an excuse if they want to vote by mail, cuts off voter registration 30 days before an election, and places strict limits on who can register voters. Second, Republicans did extremely well in the state in November; Donald Trump overwhelmingly carried the state and Democrats did poorly in state legislative races. This signals how eagerly the party has embraced efforts to make it more difficult to vote.Voting advocates say the measures are designed to block local officials from taking any action to make voting easier.“It’s really kneecapping local election officials from really adopting to facilitate voting that have proved really popular,” said Zenen Pérez, the advocacy director at Move Texas, a grassroots group that works to improve civic participation.One measure would prohibit early voting after 7pm, a time during which more than 17,000 people cast their ballots, Longoria said. Many of those people were medical workers, parents with young children, and workers at the port of Houston.“There’s some theory out there that nothing good happens after dark … the last time we built laws based on sunset was in the Jim Crow era so I don’t think we should base any more laws based on when the sun sets,” she added.Abbott and the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, a Trump ally, have been among those who have loudly claimed voter fraud is a problem. According to the Houston Chronicle, the election integrity division in Paxton’s office dedicated 22,000 hours in 2020 to investigating voter fraud cases but has found only 16 cases of any actual voter fraud.Lina Hidalgo, the top elected official in Harris county, criticized the measures.“What these folks are doing are simply continuing the trend that’s been going on since Reconstruction, through Jim Crow and up to today: trying to confuse voters, intimidate voters and enact policies that keep people from the ballot box.”Longoria said she planned to contest the slate of bills, but thinks the likelihood they will become law is a “coin toss”.“My job is to be a public servant protecting the voters of Harris county, point blank. Voters have told me directly they love drive-through voting. They love 24-hour voting. They love mail ballot voting,” she said. “I will fight for what they love to do and their right to vote until the very last breath I have on this earth. That’s what I’m here to do and that’s what I’m going to keep doing. Anyone who thinks differently, well, good luck to ’em.” More

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      in US Politics

      'Masking works': Austin fights back as Texas loosens Covid-19 restrictions

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      Months of hostility and infighting between Texas’s Republican and Democratic leaders reached a breaking point this week, when the state sued Austin and Travis county officials who were still requiring residents to wear masks in public.In a move decried as “reckless” around the United States, Texas ended almost all of its coronavirus-related restrictions on Wednesday, including a statewide mask mandate and capacity limits on businesses.But, bolstered by the formidable body of evidence that shows face coverings mitigate the spread of Covid-19, local jurisdictions such as Austin and Round Rock have decided to keep their safety protocols, drawing ire from state politicians.“I told Travis County & The City of Austin to comply with state mask law. They blew me off. So, once again, I’m dragging them to court,” the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, tweeted Thursday.Steve Adler, Austin’s mayor, said that he and Travis county judge Andy Brown would “fight to defend and enforce our local health officials’ rules for as long as possible using all the power and tools available to us”, though it wasn’t immediately clear how they planned to ensure compliance.“We promised to be guided by the doctors, science and data as concerns the pandemic and we do everything we can to keep that promise,” Adler said in a statement. “Wearing masks is perhaps the most important thing we can do to slow the spread of the virus.”Brown tweeted on Friday that “the requirement to wear masks in Travis county and Austin businesses remains in effect”, after a district judge didn’t block the local policy for the time being.“We return to court March 26,” Adler tweeted. “No matter what happens then, we will continue to be guided by doctors and data. Masking works.”At a press conference earlier this month Greg Abbott, the Texas governor, drew cheers as he announced it was time for his state to open “100%”, presenting the sudden shift in regulations as a gift to business owners and workers who have struggled because of a recession linked to the pandemic.But when Elizabeth Dixie Patrick, executive director of the Austin Independent Business Alliance, heard from local business owners about the policy change, they overwhelmingly expressed confusion, dismay and frustration.“The difference between encouraging mask wearing and mandating mask wearing is about who has to tell people, ‘no, you can’t endanger other people,’” Patrick said. “To place another burden on small business owners right now, when they’re already struggling just to stay afloat, creates all of this unnecessary anxiety.”Abbott has forced businesses into an unenviable catch-22, where owners must either go along with his no-restrictions strategy, knowingly putting staff in danger, or protect public health but “risk being harassed and attacked,” Patrick said.“The governor’s order is emboldening the people who are feeling like they have this right to put their own comfort above the safety of their fellow citizens,” she added.The state’s hasty return to pre-pandemic life comes even as only about 9% of Texans are fully vaccinated, and while a large swathe of the population remains ineligible for the jab. It marks yet another chapter in a seemingly endless saga where state and local officials battle it out, handicapping Texas’s coronavirus response in the process.During the summer, when Texas experienced a devastating spike in coronavirus cases, counties and cities trying desperately to enact and enforce regulations were thwarted by the state. Then, in the winter, Paxton sued almost immediately after Austin announced new restrictions trying to prevent further damage during another surge around the New Year’s holiday.Amid a series of court battles, brash reopenings and mask-related controversies, Texans have suffered more than 2.3 million confirmed infections and over 45,000 deaths from Covid-19.When Abbott announced his decision to sunset coronavirus-related protections earlier this month, other leaders in Texas’s large cities expressed fervent opposition, including Oscar Leeser, El Paso’s mayor, who recounted how his brother was infected and died from the virus after visiting their ailing mother without a face mask.“I share this very personal story not to seek sympathy,” he wrote, but “as someone who is deeply aware of the power and protection that wearing a face mask can provide an individual.” More

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      in US Politics

      Matthew McConaughey says running for Texas governor is a 'true consideration' – video

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      Matthew McConaughey says there is “true consideration” behind a run for Texas governor, a year before the state election. The actor was asked about politics on a recent episode of Crime Stoppers of Houston’s The Balanced Voice podcast, revealing a shift in his thoughts since he was last pressed on them in November 2020. He told host Rania Mankarious that running for governor was a “true consideration”. “I’m looking into now again, what is my leadership role?” he said. “Because I do think I have some things to teach and share, and what is my role? What’s my category in my next chapter of life that I’m going into?”
      Matthew McConaughey ‘seriously considering’ run for Texas governor More

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      in US Politics

      Matthew McConaughey 'seriously considering' run for Texas governor

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      Matthew McConaughey has announced he is “seriously considering” a run for Texas governor, a year before the state election.The actor revealed his intention on a recent episode of Crime Stoppers of Houston’s The Balanced Voice podcast on Wednesday. He told the host, Rania Mankarious, that running for governor was a “true consideration”.“I’m looking into now again, what is my leadership role?” he said. “Because I do think I have some things to teach and share, and what is my role? What’s my category in my next chapter of life that I’m going into?”If McConaughey launches a gubernatorial campaign, he will face Greg Abbott, a Republican who is up for re-election.This isn’t the first time the 51-year-old Oscar winner has hinted at the idea. When asked in November 2020 by the conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt whether he would consider a bid, he responded, “It would be up to the people more than it would me.” He called politics a “broken business” and said it would only garner more interest when it “redefines its purpose”.McConaughey’s political affiliation is unknown, and many online are speculating whether he would run as a Republican or Democrat. While there is no clear indication of which side he falls on, his past comments on hot-button issues such as gun violence, masks and defunding the police can offer some clarity.In October, McConaughey was invited on the Joe Rogan Experience, the popular podcast, where he discussed topics including being a Christian in Hollywood and defunding the police. He said some Hollywood liberals went too far left.Discussing his religion, he said: “Some people in our industry, not all of them, there’s some that go to the left so far … that go to the illiberal left side so far, that is so condescending and patronizing to 50% of the world that need the empathy that the liberals have … To illegitimize them because they say they are a believer is just so arrogant, and in some ways hypocritical, to me.”When asked about defunding the police, McConaughey gave a careful response on how he would attempt to improve relations between police and the community. “It’s almost like it should have been renamed because ‘defund’ does not sound anything like there’s been money reallocated to different areas of handling some police exercise,” he said.“The community and the police need to get back together, and the community needs to say, ‘Here’s what’s unfair. Here’s how I feel it’s unfair as a Black man or a person of color or whatever the situation. Here’s my problem with my relationship with you as cops,” he continued.McConaughey said his life practice was to meet in the middle and compromise, which is clear on his other political stances. “The two sides got to talk,” he said on the press tour for the film White Boy Rick. “Hey, where can we reach across the aisle here? Find a compromise for the betterment of all of us?”The actor spoke out on the “epidemic” of gun violence in 2018, taking a different stance from his more progressive colleagues. He showed concern that the March for Our Lives, organized after the Parkland high school shooting, would be “hijacked” by some anti-gun movement, saying that the march was for “rightful, just and responsible gun ownership – but against assault rifles, against unlimited magazines and for following up on the regulations”.Early in the pandemic, McConaughey filmed pro-mask PSAs and interviewed Dr Anthony Fauci on Instagram. In an interview with Jesse Will for Men’s Journal, he lamented how politicized mask-wearing had been by both sides of the spectrum. “It became apparent that there was no plan. Our leaders were scrambling,” he said.In the same interview, he touched on the possible message of a hypothetical campaign – not the “Make America all right, all right, all right again” many of his fans joked about, but a more serious “meet me in the middle – I dare you”. The message follows the same philosophy as his bestselling autobiography, Greenlights: “When facing any crisis, I’ve found that a good plan is to first recognize the problem, then stabilize the situation, organize the response, then respond.”Regardless of his political affiliation, McConaughey’s love for the Lone Star state is evident in his many philanthropic projects through his foundation, the Just Keep Livin’ Organization. When his home state was hit with a severe winter storm in February, McConaughey hosted a virtual benefit through his foundation to provide Texans with the “bare necessities”. More

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      in US Politics

      'It’s every man for himself': the Texans defying end of mask mandate

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      The parking lot was packed at The Shops at La Cantera, a partially outdoor mall in north-west San Antonio, on the day that Texas officially ended mandatory mask wearing. But it was clear not everyone was ready to embrace the change, with most people who wandered in and out of stores still donning face coverings, and many shops requiring customers to wear one before entering.Governor Greg Abbott announced an end to the statewide mask mandate he issued over the summer on 2 March, and on Wednesday, the new rules took effect. This means that not only are Texans no longer required to wear a mask, but stores, restaurants, and even bars are fully open at maximum capacity despite the fact that only 16% of adults in the state are fully vaccinated.But a few businesses at the mall – including Macy’s, Victoria’s Secret, and L’Occitane en Provence – took it upon themselves to defy the new rules, posting signs informing customers that their policies are not in line with those of the state government. One reads: “Your mask must cover your nose and mouth at all times. No food or drink allowed.” Another says: “No mask, no entry. We welcome 4 customers inside at a time. Thank you!”Eryn Louis sat at a table in the outdoor food court across from her sister. Before agreeing to be interviewed, both women ask for a moment to put their face masks on – a clear indication of how they feel about the governor’s new order.“I absolutely hate it,” Louis said, referring to Abbott’s decision to end the statewide mask mandate. “I was at home with my mom when I found out about it. I almost wanted to cry because even though I’m double vaccinated, I’m still high risk since I’m type 1 diabetic. Our grandfather is high risk. My stepdad is high risk.”Louis and her sister said they had already witnessed a non-cooperative customer defy a store’s mask policy.“Today, when we were leaving Target there was a lady who was getting mad because Target is still requiring people to wear masks,” Louis said. “She said, ‘Target is not a Texas corporation. You don’t have to do this.’ And of course she wasn’t wearing a mask when she walked in.”Louis is both a student and a server in a restaurant. While she is completing her classes online, she must be physically present at work where she has been most at risk throughout the pandemic.“We used to [require masks]. Now our sign on the door just says we encourage them. Even last year, my managers cared more about the guest experience than they did about being mask police,” Louis said. Louis said even before the mask mandate was lifted, she and other servers were told not to say anything to customers if they weren’t wearing a mask, since they would just take it off at their tables anyway.“I’ve had one customer come in who was a doctor. He was terrified of sitting by anyone because he’s seen Covid and what it could do.”Ayana Delvalle works at the cash register at the Pottery Barn, one of the many shops in the mall that is still enforcing a mask policy.“Pottery Barn’s policy from the beginning has always been to cover your nose and mouth from the moment you walk into the store until the time you leave,” Delvalle. “Even more so recently, we have incorporated no food or drink inside the store to prevent people from pulling their masks off.”Devalle says she is not yet vaccinated because she is still too nervous.“Getting the vaccination does scare me a little bit just because it’s still a little soon. I just want to wait it out and see how the more of the population reacts to it before I make that decision myself.”However, she says she will continue to wear a mask in public.“For me personally, it’s everyone’s choice but I would hope people would make the right decision as far as other people’s safety and health,” Devalle said.Mahak Ahsan is a student pharmacist in the city. She expressed frustration that the state government is impeding the work she and her colleagues are doing to administer vaccines, and educate people about the benefits of immunizations and wearing masks.“No one has any respect for the healthcare workers. Not even just for us but nurses and doctors – everyone who works so tirelessly. We’re the ones who are around the sick people the most so it’s just a slap in our face,” Ahsan said. “It just really sucks.”Ahsan believes the mask mandate lift is “a very bad idea”.“Majority of Texas hasn’t even been vaccinated. That’s insane,” Ahsan said. “I don’t feel comfortable knowing that so many people out here aren’t vaccinated and are walking around without masks.”Ahsan said she was angry and concerned because while she is fully vaccinated, her parents only just received their first shots this week. She believes vaccines should be available and accessible to everyone now that masks are no longer required.“They did a horrible job of trying to give the [vaccines] to the people who need it the most. You see these teachers still don’t have it,” she said. “At this point, it’s every man for himself. Everyone needs to have gotten it by now.” More

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      in Elections

      ¿Por qué los hombres latinos votan por los republicanos?

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      in US Politics

      Fauci warns against lifting Covid measures but Republican states push on

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      The top infectious disease expert in the US, Dr Anthony Fauci, has warned it is too early to end Covid-19 restrictions, despite Texas and Mississippi having lifted mask mandates and business capacity limits this week.States are easing restrictions after a drop in cases, though that decline is starting to plateau at a high rate of 60,000 to 70,000 infections per day.“We’re going in the right direction but we just need to hang on a bit longer,” Fauci said on Sunday, to CBS’s Face the Nation.Public health experts have warned that the US could undermine progress with vaccines and allow for thousands of preventable deaths by lifting restrictions at the first sign of improvements. More than 524,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the US and January was its deadliest month of the pandemic so far.Fauci, chief medical adviser to Joe Biden, said turning restrictions “on and off” risked another surge.“This is not going to be indefinite, we need to gradually pull back as we get people vaccinated,” he said.Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist who advised Biden’s transition team, warned the US was still “in the eye of the hurricane”.Osterholm told NBC’s Meet the Press the situation appeared to be improving, but said he was concerned the B117 variant, which is 50% more infectious than other variants in the US, could create a new surge.“We do have to keep America as safe as we can from this virus by not letting up on any of the public health measures we’ve taken and we need to get people vaccinated as quickly as we can,” said Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.On CNN’s State of the Union, the Mississippi governor, Tate Reeves, said he lifted restrictions in his state because of declining rates of hospitalizations.“Our objective in Mississippi has never been to rid ourselves of the virus … our goal is to make sure we protect the integrity of our healthcare system,” the Republican said.Mississippi has seen an average of 461 cases per day, down 17% from the average two weeks ago, according to the New York Times. There were 1,240 deaths from Covid-19 in the state in January, the highest of any month since the pandemic began. About 16% of residents have received a first vaccine dose.“The numbers in Mississippi don’t justify government intervention,” said Reeves, who encouraged residents to keep wearing masks in crowded settings.Other governors have celebrated their state’s mask mandates and said they will remain in place until there is a substantial improvement in infection rates.Mike DeWine of Ohio, a Republican, told ABC’s This Week his state’s mask order was followed by a “significant drop in cases”.“We’ve seen it throughout this last year, these mask really, really work,” DeWine said.He said his state would drop health orders once it had 50 cases or fewer per 100,000 people for two weeks. Though rates were still high in Ohio, he said, the state’s vaccination distribution was getting better each day.“But as we’re doing that, we can’t give up the defense,” DeWine said.The dean of Brown University’s school of public health, Ashish Jha, said decisions such as those by Reeves and Texas governor Greg Abbott to lift restrictions could slow the process of getting life back to normal and put residents at risk of infection and death.“Given how close we are to the finish line, anybody who gets infected today and dies in three or four weeks is somebody who would have gotten vaccinated a month from now,” Jha told ABC. “This is why it’s urgent to just keep going for a little bit longer.” More

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      What Drives Latino Men to Republicans?

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyA Vexing Question for Democrats: What Drives Latino Men to Republicans?Several voters said values like individual responsibility and providing for one’s family, and a desire for lower taxes and financial stability, led them to reject a party embraced by their parents.Jose Aguilar said he related to Republican messages about personal responsibility. “There’s really no secret to success,” he said. “It’s really that if you apply yourself, then things will work out.”Credit…Go Nakamura for The New York TimesMarch 5, 2021Erik Ortiz, a 41-year-old hip-hop music producer in Florida, grew up poor in the South Bronx, and spent much of his time as a young adult trying to establish himself financially. Now he considers himself rich. And he believes shaking off the politics of his youth had something to do with it.“Everybody was a liberal Democrat — in my neighborhood, in the Bronx, in the local government,” said Mr. Ortiz, whose family is Black and from Puerto Rico. “The welfare state was bad for our people — the state became the father in the Black and brown household and that was a bad, bad mistake.” Mr. Ortiz became a Republican, drawn to messages of individual responsibility and lower taxes. To him, generations of poor people have stayed loyal to a Democratic Party that has failed to transform their lives.“Why would I want to be stuck in that mentality?” he said.While Democrats won the vast majority of Hispanic voters in the 2020 presidential race, the results also showed Republicans making inroads with this demographic, the largest nonwhite voting group — and particularly among Latino men. According to exit polls, 36 percent of Latino men voted for Donald J. Trump in 2020, up from 32 percent in 2016. These voters also helped Republicans win several House seats in racially diverse districts that Democrats thought were winnable, particularly in Texas and Florida. Both parties see winning more Hispanic votes as critical in future elections.Yet a question still lingers from the most recent one, especially for Democrats who have long believed they had a major edge: What is driving the political views of Latino men?For decades, Democratic candidates worked with the assumption that if Latinos voted in higher numbers, the party was more likely to win. But interviews with dozens of Hispanic men from across the country who voted Republican last year showed deep frustration with such presumptions, and rejected the idea that Latino men would instinctively support liberal candidates. These men challenged the notion that they were part of a minority ethnic group or demographic reliant on Democrats; many of them grew up in areas where Hispanics are the majority and are represented in government. And they said many Democrats did not understand how much Latino men identified with being a provider — earning enough money to support their families is central to the way they view both themselves and the political world.Like any voter, these men are also driven by their opinions on a variety of issues: Many mention their anti-abortion views, support for gun rights and strict immigration policies. They have watched their friends and relatives go to western Texas to work the oil fields, and worry that new environmental regulations will wipe out the industry there. Still, most say their favorable view of Republicans stems from economic concerns, a desire for low taxes and few regulations. They say they want to support the party they believe will allow them to work and become wealthy.Public polling has long showed political divides within the Latino electorate — Cuban-Americans have favored Republicans far more than have Mexican-Americans, for example. During the 2020 election, precincts with large numbers of Colombian and Venezuelan immigrants swung considerably toward Mr. Trump. Surveys conducted last year by Equis Research, which studies Latino voters, showed a striking gender gap, with Latino men far more inclined than Latina women to support Republicans.And researchers believe that Mexican-American men under the age of 50 are perhaps the demographic that should most concern Democrats, because they are more likely to drift toward conservative candidates. According to a precinct-level analysis by OpenLabs, a liberal research group, Hispanic support for Democrats dropped by as much as 9 percent in last year’s election, and far more in parts of Florida and South Texas.Winning over Latino men is in some ways a decades-old challenge for Democrats — a nagging reminder that the party has never had a forceful grip on this demographic. Still, some strategists on the left are increasingly alarmed that the party is not doing enough to reach men whose top priorities are based on economics, rather than racial justice or equality. And they warn that Hispanic men are likely to provide crucial swing votes in future races for control of Congress in the midterm elections, as well as who governs from the White House.“Democrats have lots of real reasons they should be worried,” said Joshua Ulibarri, a Democratic strategist who has researched Hispanic men for years. “We haven’t figured out a way to speak to them, to say that we have something for them, that we understand them. They look at us and say: We believe we work harder, we want the opportunity to build something of our own, and why should we punish people who do well?”According to exit polls, 36 percent of Latino men voted for Mr. Trump in 2020, up from 32 percent in 2016.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York TimesJose Aguilar grew up in McAllen, Texas, in the 1960s, raised by parents who had limited means for buying food and clothing. They were hard workers, and instilled in him that “if you apply yourself, you will get what you deserve.” His family welcomed relatives from Mexico who stayed for a short time and then returned across the border; some managed to immigrate legally and become citizens, and he believes that’s how anyone else should do so.Still, Mr. Aguilar did benefit from an affirmative action-style program that recruited Hispanic students from South Texas to enter an engineering program.“They were trying to fill quotas to hire Hispanic people in their company,” he said. “The first I ever got on was on a paid ticket to interview for a job, so I did. I saw that as a good opportunity for me to take advantage of, this was my chance, to take that opportunity and run.”Mr. Aguilar, who now lives near Houston, said he saw Mr. Trump as a model of prosperity in the United States.“I’m an American, I can take advantage of whatever opportunities just as Anglo people did,” he added. “There’s really no secret to success — it’s really that if you apply yourself, then things will work out.”Sergio Arellano of Phoenix, Ariz., said he had a story he liked to tell about the moment he registered as a Republican. When he was an 18-year-old Army infantryman on home leave, he went to a July 4 event and spotted the voter registration table. He asked the woman sitting there: What’s the difference between Republicans and Democrats?Democrats, he recalled her saying, are for the poor. Republicans are for the rich.“Well that made it easy — I didn’t want to be poor, I wanted to be rich, so I chose Republican,” Mr. Arellano said. “Obviously she figured I would identify with the poor. There’s an assumption that you’re starting out in this country, you don’t have any money, you will identify with the poor. But what I wanted was to make my own money.”Last fall, Mr. Arellano campaigned for Mr. Trump in Arizona, and this year, he narrowly lost his bid for chairman of the state Republican Party. Still, he does not fit the Trumpian conservative mold, often urging politicians to soften their political rhetoric against immigrants.“Trump is not the party, the party is what we make it — a pro-business, pro-family values,” he said. “People who understand we want to make it as something here.”All of this sounds familiar to Mike Madrid, a Republican strategist who is deeply critical of the party under Mr. Trump, and who has worked for decades to push the party to do more to attract Hispanic voters.“Paying rent is more important than fighting social injustice in their minds,” Mr. Madrid said. “The Democratic Party has always been proud to be a working-class party, but they do not have a working-class message. The central question is going to be, Who can convince these voters their concerns are being heard?”Supporters of Mr. Trump in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami in November. They were celebrating his winning Florida’s electoral votes. Credit…Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesRicardo Portillo has contempt for most politicians, but has been inclined to vote for Republicans for most of his life. The owner of a jewelry store in McAllen, Texas, for the past 20 years, Mr. Portillo prides himself on his business acumen. And from his point of view, both he and his customers did well under a Trump administration. Though he describes most politicians as “terrible” — Republicans, he said, “at least let me keep more of my money, and are for the government doing less and allowing me for doing more for myself.”In the last year, Mr. Portillo, 45, has seen business dip as fewer Mexican citizens are crossing the border to shop at his store. Before the coronavirus pandemic, business was brisk with customers from both sides of the border.A sense of economic security is a shift for Mr. Portillo, who grew up often struggling.“We were brought up the old-school way, that men are men, they have to provide, that there’s no excuses and there’s no crying. If you don’t make it, it’s because you’re a pendejo,” he said, using a Spanish term for idiot. “Maybe that’s not nice, but it breeds strong men, mentally strong men.”The question now, he said, is “what am I going to be able to do for myself and for my family? We don’t feel entitled to much, but we’re entitled to the fruit of our labor.”As a child in New Mexico, Valentin Cortez, 46, was raised by two parents who voted as Democrats, but were personally conservative. Mr. Cortez was around “a lot of cowboys and a lot of farmers” who were also Hispanic, but he never felt as though he was part of a minority and said he never personally experienced any racism.Like so many other men interviewed, he views politics as hopelessly divisive now: “You can’t have an opinion without being attacked.”Though a handful of friends have blocked him on social media when he expressed conservative views, he said, he does not feel silenced in his own life.Mr. Cortez occasionally resents being seen as a minority — he grew up around other Hispanics in New Mexico and believes he has the same kinds of opportunities as his white counterparts. The bigger problem, as he sees it, is the lack of willingness to disagree: “I’ve got friends, they think that I hate my own culture. I have been shut down personally, but I am comfortable with who I am.”Valentin Cortez grew up around other Hispanics in New Mexico and believes he has the same kinds of opportunities as his white counterparts.Credit…Audra Melton for The New York TimesLike other men interviewed, Mr. Cortez, a registered independent, said he voted for Mr. Trump in large part because he believed he had done better financially under his administration and worried that a government run by President Biden would raise taxes and support policies that would favor the elite.Some of the frustrations voiced by Hispanic Republican men are stoked by misinformation, including conspiracy theories claiming that the “deep state” took over during the Trump administration and a belief that Black Lives Matter protests caused widespread violence.In interviews, many cite their support for law enforcement and the military as reasons they favor the Republican Party.For Chuck Rocha, a Democratic strategist who helped run Senator Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign last year, the warning signs about losing Latino men were there for months. In focus groups conducted in North Carolina, Nevada and Arizona, Hispanic men spoke of deep disillusionment with politics broadly, saying that most political officials offer nothing more than empty promises, spurring apathy among many would-be voters.“We’re not speaking to the rage and the inequality that they feel,” he said. “They just wanted their lives to get better, they just wanted somebody to explain to them how their lives would get better under a President Biden.”To Mr. Rocha, the skepticism of Democrats is a sign of political maturity in some ways.“We’re coming-of-age, we’re getting older, and now it’s no longer just survival, now you need prosperity,” he said. “But when you start to feel like you just can’t get ahead, you’re going to have the same kind of rage we’ve long seen with white working-class voters.”For some Latino men who favor Republicans, they simply want the government to stay out of their way and not impede their chances of success.“You can’t legislate equality, you can’t legislate work ethic and you can’t legislate being a good person,” Mr. Ortiz said. “I am not perfect and nobody is perfect, but for me it starts with individual responsibility.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More