Amid record election turnout in Tarrant County, many Latinos stayed home. Here’s why
Juan Francisco Sarmiento, 28, voted for the first time in a presidential election on Nov. 3.
“I voted because I’m worried about the future of our country and I want to be a part of it. I want to make sure we’re on the right path,” he said in Spanish.
He did not want to say who he voted for but said his main concern was that not everyone in the United States has the same opportunities to better themselves. Sarmiento immigrated to the U.S. more than 10 years ago from Zacatecas, Mexico, where he grew up working on a ranch.
“I want my kids to grow up and have a better life,” he said Friday evening as he cleaned out horse stalls along with his 6-year-old son at Chavela’s, a corral in north Fort Worth.
But most of Sarmiento’s neighbors in the Diamond Hill neighborhood were not as compelled to cast their vote.
The turnout in precincts where Latinos make up the majority of registered voters was 35% lower than the rest of the county, according to a Star-Telegram analysis of election data. But those who did cast a ballot overwhelmingly voted for former Vice President Joe Biden.
President Donald Trump gained support in Tarrant County’s predominately Latino precincts, increasing his vote by six percentage points compared to 2016. He also won additional support in other parts of Texas where Latinos are the majority.
Experts say Latinos’ concerns vary by gender, geography and national origin, and both parties have largely failed to understand or have ignored the issues that motivate each community to vote.
Yolanda Gomez said she did not cast a vote because the lack of outreach by candidates made her feel like her vote doesn’t matter. Gomez, who lives and works at a hair salon in Diamond Hill, voted in 2016 but this time neither candidate connected with her.
“They only think about the rich people on top,” she said. “They don’t think about us.”
Low turnout
Latinos make up 82% of the electorate in the area north of the Stockyards and south of Loop 820, which includes the Diamond Hill neighborhood, according to a Washington, D.C., firm that collects voter data. Less than half of registered voters here cast a ballot in the past three general elections, according to Tarrant County data.
In this election, 49% of registered voters in the area cast their ballot compared to 68.7% in Tarrant County.
“I think Democrats take the Latino vote for granted and they continue failing to understand that Latinos are not a monolithic group,” said Valerie Martinez-Ebers, political science professor and director of Latino and Mexican-American studies at the University of North Texas.
She said Latinos across Texas and across the country have divergent views on guns, education, faith and border security. And if candidates want to win their vote, they have to make a long-term commitment to engage these communities.
“I don’t think either party made an effort to show up and engage the Latino communities here in North Texas,” Martinez-Ebers said. “Past candidates have done so and its paid off.”
Losing steam
Biden overwhelmingly won the Latino vote in Tarrant County but did not have the same level of support in majority Latino communities as previous Democratic candidates.
About 70.4% of the vote in Tarrant County precincts where Latinos make up more than 50% of registered voters went to Biden compared to 28% for Trump, according to a Star-Telegram analysis of voter data from the research firm L2 provided by the Center for Public Integrity.
Washington, D.C.-based L2 collects voter data and sells it to congressional and state officials. L2 uses multiple characteristics including last names and census data to determine the ethnicity of registered voters.
In precincts with a majority of white voters, Trump won 55.5% of the vote with turnout of 70%. In precincts with a majority of Black voters, Biden received 87% of the vote with turnout at 50%.
Biden holds a lead of less than 1% in Tarrant County. If he holds on, he would be the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Tarrant County since President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.
Former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke made headlines in 2018 when he won Tarrant County over Sen. Ted Cruz with 49.9% of the vote compared to Cruz’s 49.2%.
In 2018, O’Rourke won 84% of the vote in a dozen precincts north of the Fort Worth Stockyards where more than three out of four registered voters are Latinos, according to L2 data. O’Rourke beat Hillary Clinton’s 79% in 2016, but Biden seems to have lost the steam of Democrats in these Latino-majority precincts. This year, Biden had 76% of the Latino vote while Trump won 22%, up from 18% in 2016 and 15% for Cruz in 2018.
A number of heavily Latino counties in the Rio Grande Valley also shifted toward Trump, according to a New York Times analysis.
Nationwide, 70% of Latinos voted for Biden compared to 27% who voted for Trump, according to a national poll of more than 15,000 people by Latino Decisions, a Seattle-based firm that specializes in Latino political opinion research.
“Had only Latinos voted, the election would have been a cake walk,” said Gary Segura, political science professor at the University of California and co-founder of Latino Decisions. He said Latinos and voters of color were critical to Biden’s success in key states like Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin.
“Gender, geography and national origin complicate our understanding of minority voters,” he said. “But COVID, health and jobs are dominating our national agenda.”
Latinos Divided
Jerry Briseño, 60, of Fort Worth said he voted for Trump because he is worried about the economy.
“I’m for jobs and he created jobs,” Briseño said after casting his ballot at the Northwest Branch Library voting center on Nov. 3. “I’m worried that if Biden wins, he’ll shut down the country and people will lose their jobs.”
More than 51% of Latino households in Texas lost work or income due to the pandemic, according to
UnidosUS, the largest Latino nonprofit advocacy organization in the U.S.
The latest polls show Latinos are split between economic or health concerns of COVID-19 but the vast majority want to see a responsible approach to reopening the economy and schools that follow the advice of health experts, according to Clarissa Martinez-DeCastro, deputy vice-president of policy and advocacy at UnidosUS.
“We do not support sacrificing grandma or abuelita for the sake of the economy,” De-Castro said.
But U.S. voters like Briseño went to the polls starkly divided on how they see Trump’s response to the coronovirus pandemic. A study by the Associated Press found that counties with the worst virus surges overwhelmingly voted for Trump.
More than 75,000 COVID-19 cases and 763 deaths have been reported in Tarrant County. Biden won El Paso County and Hidalgo County, two of the counties with the most Latino voters and two of the worst hot spots in Texas, but Trump added about 67,000 votes from 2016, according to a POLITICO report.
