Commentary: Latinos in New York and the 2024 presidential election

“Latino voters are defecting to the Republican Party.” “Latinos cost Kamala Harris the presidency.” Since election night, Latinos seem to have become the scapegoat for Democrats’ loss of the White House. Then there are the claims like “Trump wins a bigger share of the Latino vote in New York City.”

Is that last claim true? Well, yes. But it is unhelpful to define Latinos as one big, broad group, as it is complicated to explain Trump’s apparent increase in the Latino vote.

To make sense of the blaming and claiming, I have analyzed the precinct-level (or in New York terminology, election district-level) presidential election results in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens. Though Staten Island has a growing Latino voting population, its density is not sufficient to include here.

My data comes from the official election results provided by the New York City Board of Elections. I modeled the Latino demographics using L2’s voter database (L2 is a nonpartisan voter data company utilized by many campaigns, academics and some major media outlets), election results, demographic modeling of the voter file, and looking at specific Latino-heavy neighborhoods, while factoring in the changes of election districts that occur every ten years as a result of redistricting efforts.

Based on this preliminary analysis, I found that Trump’s share of Latino support across these four boroughs did indeed increase, with the largest increase coming from Latinos in Queens, but Latinos still give the Democratic nominee the majority of their vote. Contrary to what we have seen in some parts of the country (and even across the river in New Jersey’s Passaic and Hudson counties), there is no indication of Latinos in New York City defecting en masse from voting for Democrats to choosing Republicans. I characterize the 2024 shift not so much as a defection as a repudiation of the Biden administration’s policy positions, years of neglect of Latinos’ plight and political parties’ lack of real engagement with Latino voters. In New York, the majority of Latinos are registered Democrats. Thus, we must ask: why has the state Democratic Party failed to engage this constituency despite its loyalty to the Democratic cause?

The largest concentration of Latinos in Manhattan is in the Washington Heights area, almost all of it within Assembly District 72. In my analysis, I have lasered in on precincts that are at least 50% Latino, which includes the majority of precincts in that Assembly district. In 2024, Trump appears to have won 31% support from Latino voters in Assembly District 72 – a 14 point increase over his 2020 margin.

Naturally, Trump’s increase represents a decrease for the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris. Whereas Biden received 83% of the Latino vote in Assembly District 72, Harris received only 69%.

Within Assembly District 68 – which mostly covers East Harlem and contains the second-largest Latino concentration in Manhattan – Harris’ numbers were better than in Assembly District 72, but they were still less than Biden’s margin in 2020. 

Overall, I estimate Harris received about 75% of the vote in Latino-majority election districts across Manhattan.

Moving north to the Bronx presents us with some fascinating findings, with some differences in levels of support for Harris across Assembly districts. In Assembly District 78, for instance, Latino support for Harris was 69% – 15 points less than for Biden in 2020. Assembly District 84 in the South Bronx did not see such a drastic shift, with Harris winning 74% of the Latino vote, just 3 points less than the 77% that Biden won in 2020.

Other Latino-majority Assembly districts in the Bronx, like Assembly Districts 85 and 86, saw decreases of nine to 12 percentage points for the Democratic presidential candidate. Thus, in the only Latino-majority borough in New York City, despite strong Latino support for the Democratic presidential candidate, a decline is evident.

A move east to Queens shows a particularly strong decline in Latino support for Harris compared to Biden in 2020 – indeed, a greater decline than any other district with a large Latino presence.

Across the Latino-majority election districts in Assembly districts 34, 35 and 39 (the neighborhoods of Corona, Elmhurst and East Elmhurst), I found that Latino support for Democrats declined by about 18 percentage points between 2020 and 2024.

In the past, levels of support for Democratic candidates from Latinos were similar across the boroughs. Why the difference now? Perhaps it is due to the growing discontent within Latino communities in Queens, stemming largely from frustrations over public safety and quality-of-life issues that many people have attributed to an out-of-control migrant crisis. As detailed in a recent New York magazine article, shifts in voter sentiment among Latinos are partly influenced by their experiences with local policies, public safety concerns and perceptions of the current administration's handling of key issues.

In Brooklyn, results appear to be similar to those in the Bronx and Manhattan. Taking a look at the Assembly District 51, which covers Latino-heavy Sunset Park, Harris earned 57% of the vote in Latino-majority election districts – a 14 point decrease from Biden’s results in 2020. Results in Assembly District 53 (representing portions of Latinos in Bushwick) and Assembly District 54 (parts of East New York) show Harris hovering around the 70% mark with Latinos, down about five points from four years before.

There are some stark differences in voting preference among those districts in Brooklyn. Assembly District 51 is home to a large number of Latinos who arrived from other countries, while Assembly Districts 53 and 54 are home to more Puerto Ricans who have had a longer presence in New York. Are more recent Latino arrivals more concerned and aggravated by the arrival of newer Latino groups than are their Puerto Rican counterparts? The state Board of Elections voter file updates will give us a more detailed picture of what transpired, but for now, we must ask the question since these differences in Latino voting patterns are rising.

Any discussion about changes in voting preferences must also take into account voter registration patterns, since they can provide other clues about any potential “defections.” I examined two sets of voter registration periods – one from 2018 up to the 2020 presidential election and the other from 2022 up to the 2024 presidential election. Here is what I have discovered:

From 2018 to 2020, a total of 201,878 Latinos registered to vote in New York City. Of these, 55% registered as Democrats, 34% were deemed non-affiliated voters since they did not select to register with any particular political party and just 8% registered as Republicans.

From 2022 to 2024, I note a steep decline in new Latino registrants. Only 87,252 Latinos registered to vote during this time period. Of these, 43% registered as Democrats, 42% as non-affiliated and 12% as Republicans. Not only do we observe a 57% decline in new Latino registrants compared to the 2018–20 period, but we also note a decline in those registering with the Democratic Party. And it is perhaps this dynamic that may say more about the future of Latino voting realities than the results of one presidential election cycle. 

Through these registration numbers and the numerous public polls that have come out over the last few years, it is clear that Latinos are largely unsatisfied with the current political and social realities. No wonder: Latinos bear the brunt of social, economic and political calamities. My fear is that instead of using these realities as motivational tools or means to express their desires at the ballot box, Latinos may be choosing not to participate in the political process at all.

Since the 2018 election cycle, Latino voting participation in New York has declined significantly, no doubt for many different reasons. Whether by voting preferences or lack of political participation, Latinos are clearly expressing their discontent. Are our political leaders and parties paying attention? Given Latinos’ numbers and plight, I surely hope so.