As Latino voters shift to the right, political consultant Mike Madrid has noticed a striking pattern of progressives attacking Latinos as ignorant or misogynistic.
Madrid — who grew up in a Southern California Mexican family — thinks of the matriarchal culture of Mexicans and the high rate of Latinas being elected into public office, as running counter to “all the attention Americans give to Latino machismo.”
Read more: Machismo and Marianismo – What’s the Difference?
Machismo, Madrid says, is not “endemic to our culture,” and as the Democratic Party becomes more white and college-educated, this trope makes a caricature of Latinos, as if they “can’t make policy decisions on their own.”
In his new book, “The Latino Century,” Madrid — a longtime member of the GOP and critic of Donald Trump — writes about the misconceptions of the U.S. Latino electorate and explores how Republicans and Democrats are failing Latino voters, a growing number of whom are second and third generation who speak less Spanish.
Madrid notes a growing partisan bias that has led Democratic research firms to miss a rightward shift happening with Latino voters. This shift is “happening despite Republicans’ best efforts, not because of them,” Madrid writes. Democrats have over-sampled Spanish-speaking voters, and the GOP — which demonizes Latin American immigrants — uses racial wedge issues to get their voters to the polls, according to Madrid.
“The Latino Century” doesn’t argue for Republicanism, but “that doesn’t mean that the Democratic Party is getting it right,” Madrid told URL Media. “Both parties are going to fail us, as long as we continue to look to them for the answers. We have to solve our problems and have the parties come to us.”
Madrid, a co-founder of the Lincoln Project, writes of a cultural shift toward greater influence for women as the Latino population continues to exponentially grow.
In 2022, women accounted for 31% of U.S. state legislators, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, but that number was considerably higher (43%) among the rising number of Latino elected officials, Madrid writes, citing data from the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators.
In California, 60% of Latino state legislators are women — 19 women to 13 men. In Texas, that number is 44%. Madrid also notes a slightly higher representation of Latinas in the U.S. House of Representatives, when compared to the total number of women.
The rise of female elected representation embodies a diversity of ideology, nationality, and geography, writes Madrid, adding that “regardless of the state of our politics, it will be Hispanic women leading the way.”
In his book, Madrid describes Latinos as swing voters, having “among the weakest partisan ties of any ethnic group in the U.S.” That’s why he sees a blind spot in that neither party has developed an economic working-class agenda for Latinos as a primary message, even as quality surveys of Latino voters have identified jobs and the economy as the top issue.
Madrid points to the exponential growth of Latinos who are now third and even fourth generation voters “who don’t see the world through their own racial, ethnic narrative priorities.” Despite this, the political landscape characterizes Latinos as motivated by immigration, farmworker, and border issues, he writes.
The Democratic Party is struggling because “it’s losing its working class base,” Madrid said. And Republicans, he writes, “are resistant to the multiethnic future that is America’s destiny.”
“The failure of both parties to develop an aspirational working-class agenda is manifesting in lower voter turnout,” according to Madrid.
