Hispanic Republicans say attacks from the left on their race, including claims that they "want to be White," are disheartening, racist and untrue.
"It's kind of just racist," Las Vegas resident David Jimenez told Fox News Digital while attending a pro-Trump event in Nevada. "Everyone's entitled to vote however they want."
While Vice President Kamala Harris still leads former President Trump among Hispanic voters, the gap has shrunk to its smallest point in the past four election cycles. Young men in particular have driven the Democratic losses — 53% of Hispanic men under 50 are choosing Trump in Nevada, according to a Suffolk University/USA Today survey released this month.
MSNBC guest Maria Hinojosa claimed last month that Latino voters "want to be White" while discussing the voting bloc's shift away from the Democratic Party.
"They want to be with the cool kids," Hinojosa said.
Latino Republicans "are ashamed of their ethnic origins and would rather be White" in an "ideological sense," a UCLA professor suggested in an opinion column in Newsweek earlier this year.
Another journalist said on MSNBC earlier this month that Latinos shifting away from Democrats had "internalized racism."
Former Texas congressional candidate Rolando Rodriguez called such remarks "propaganda."
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"Media and the Democrat Party, they want to make everything, all this division, by races," said Rodriguez, who comes from a Spanish and Mexican family but proudly added that he was born in the United States.
Lydia Dominguez, a Clark County school board candidate who spoke on a panel at the pro-Trump event in Las Vegas, called some of the comments about race "disheartening."
"As a Latino community… we have so much strength in our family," she said. "We have so much great work ethic in our culture and we have so much more to give to this country, and we truly love Trump's vision of making this country great again."
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Jimenez said in 2016 there was definitely a "negative connotation to voting for Trump." Eight years later, he believes the stigma of being a Hispanic Trump voter is wearing off.
"Now, I feel like based on what Joe Biden has done and what Kamala Harris has done in this administration, I think people are more open to accepting that Donald Trump's a better option," he said.
