The Social and Political Identities of Latine Republicans in the U.S.

Between the 2016 and 2024 presidential elections, support for Republican candidate Donald Trump among Latine voters increased from 29% to 42%. This rise has attracted interest given Trump's nativist rhetoric and policies that target Latine immigrants. Previous literature has examined the growing Republican partisanship among Latine Americans, focusing on the processes of assimilation and the effects of racial ideology on the partisanship of the Latine electorate. Although this research is gaining traction, the political attitudes of Latine Republicans remain understudied. This study explores how Latine Republicans manipulate ethnoracial attachments to justify their support for Donald Trump and the Republican Party. Fourteen in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with self-identified Latine Republican voters from January to April 2025. Findings indicate that Latine Republicans prioritize an American identity over their Latine identity, using learned Latine cultural values to explain their seemingly paradoxical identities. Additionally, the Latines in my study consent to a white racial framing of society to distance themselves from the racialized targets of Republican rhetoric: undocumented Latine immigrants. This study builds upon a growing body of literature that interprets the motivations for Latine Republicans through the lens of dominant racial ideology and theories of assimilation.