The video examines a significant political shift occurring among Latino voters in the United States and its potential impact on the upcoming midterm elections. The Wall Street Journal's analysis reveals that Latino voters, traditionally strong supporters of the Democratic Party, are increasingly leaning toward the Republican Party. This shift in political allegiance was notably visible during the 2020 presidential election, particularly in key areas such as Texas, Pennsylvania, and South Florida.

The video dives into specific regions to detail how and why these shifts happened. In Texas, the shift is partly attributed to economic concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic, whereas in Pennsylvania, economic credibility under the Trump administration and disillusionment with current Democratic policies are influencing voter sentiment. Meanwhile, in South Florida, the influence of past experiences with socialist regimes in countries like Cuba and Venezuela has made Republican messaging particularly resonant.

Main takeaways from the video:

Please remember to turn on the CC button to view the subtitles.

Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. pivotal [ˈpɪvətl] - (adjective) - Of crucial importance in relation to the development or success of something else. - Synonyms: (central, crucial, vital)

Across the United States, a political shift is rocking the two major political parties and promising to play a pivotal role in this year's midterm elections.

2. demographic [ˌdɛməˈɡræfɪk] - (noun / adjective) - Relating to the structure of populations. - Synonyms: (population group, social group, populace)

Tell us, big picture first, why are shifts in this demographic so significant? This shift among latino voters is one of the most important things that's happened recently in american politics, and everyone's watching to see if it's durable

3. electorate [ɪˈlɛktərət] - (noun) - All the people in a country or area who are entitled to vote in an election. - Synonyms: (voters, constituency, body of voters)

Latino voters are one of the biggest and fastest growing parts of the electorate, and they swung a lot away from the Democratic Party and toured the Republican Party in 2020.

4. census tracts [ˈsɛnsəs trækts] - (noun) - Geographically defined areas established by the U.S. Census Bureau for analyzing populations. - Synonyms: (statistical areas, districts, sections)

In the last presidential election, 3730 predominantly latino census tracts shifted to the right, compared to just 352 that shifted left.

5. pervasive [pərˈveɪsɪv] - (adjective) - Spreading widely throughout an area or a group of people. - Synonyms: (widespread, extensive, ubiquitous)

The shift was pervasive, but it wasn't uniform.

6. disillusioned [ˌdɪsɪˈluːʒənd] - (adjective) - Disappointed in someone or something that one discovers to be less good than one had believed. - Synonyms: (disenchanted, disheartened, demoralized)

But I found that voters were disillusioned with both political parties.

7. salience [ˈseɪlɪəns] - (noun) - The quality of being particularly noticeable or important; prominence. - Synonyms: (importance, significance, weight)

But the large presence in South Florida of latino voters who come from countries that are dictatorships, Cuba and Venezuela, noticeably meant that one issue had particular salience in South Florida, and that is the republican criticism that Democrats are going to turn the United States into a socialist country

8. durable [ˈdʊrəbl] - (adjective) - Able to withstand wear, pressure, or damage; lasting. - Synonyms: (enduring, long-lasting, strong)

This shift among latino voters is one of the most important things that's happened recently in american politics, and everyone's watching to see if it's durable.

9. credibility [ˌkrɛdəˈbɪləti] - (noun) - The quality of being convincing or believable. - Synonyms: (believability, reliability, trustworthiness)

And the economy under Trump gave the Republican Party a lot of credibility with these voters.

10. prosperous [ˈprɒspərəs] - (adjective) - Successful in material terms; flourishing financially. - Synonyms: (thriving, successful, flourishing)

We're going to be the most prosperous state in the nation.

Why Latino Voters Political Shifts Could Decide 2022s Key Races - WSJ

Across the United States, a political shift is rocking the two major political parties and promising to play a pivotal role in this year's midterm elections. The shift is among latino voters. We're going to show you a WSJ analysis of where this shift happened in 2020 and zoom in on three key areas to watch as the midterms approach in 2022.

So, Erin, you're a WSJ editor, focused on polling and political data. Tell us, big picture first, why are shifts in this demographic so significant? This shift among latino voters is one of the most important things that's happened recently in american politics, and everyone's watching to see if it's durable. Latino voters are one of the biggest and fastest growing parts of the electorate, and they swung a lot away from the Democratic Party and toured the Republican Party in 2020.

To better understand political shifts across America, WSJ created this map that brought together electoral, demographic, and economic data at the neighborhood level. By doing this, we found something striking. In the last presidential election, 3730 predominantly latino census tracts shifted to the right, compared to just 352 that shifted left. census tracts are boundaries set by the US Census Bureau that average about 4000 residents per tract.

So, Erin, what do these shifts tell you? Well, they tell us that something is changing in the electorate. The shift was pervasive, but it wasn't uniform. It happened to different extents in different places, but it happened among all kinds of latino voters.

Okay, so let's zoom into some of these key communities. First, we'll go to Texas, to these neighborhoods along the southern border. So what are we seeing here? What we're seeing is a map of the vote, not county by county, but neighborhood by neighborhood. Technically, these are census tracts. And in 2016, these shades of blue indicate that the vote was pretty firmly democratic in most neighborhoods. That's that rich, dark blue that you see.

All right, so then in 2020, you can see those shades of blue got lighter. That's right. That signals that the democratic candidate, Joe Biden, still won those neighborhoods, but he got a smaller share of the vote than Democrats got in 2016. All right, so if you take a look at the shift, here's what that looks like. Almost all of these neighborhoods shifted, right? Correct? That's right. This whole region is now dark red on the map, showing that there was a big shift, about 20 points or more in many places toward Donald Trump.

What do we know about the shift? What motivated it? We're still studying it. A lot of people are studying it. But it looks like the most important thing that happened is that the issue mix changed. In 2016, there was a lot of talk about immigration, but in 2020, it was all about the economy and Covid. And when Covid struck, it hit the Rio Grande Valley very hard. But voters hold the kind of jobs that you can't do from home. And so when businesses were shut down, they lost work, and they favored the republican point of view on keeping businesses open during COVID rather than the democratic impulse to shut things down in order to protect public.

The shift is really significant, but this part of Texas is not as populated as some of those huge cities. Austin, Dallas, Houston. Why is this area so politically significant? If you want a signal of how important this area is, consider that both the candidates running for governor, the current governor, Greg Abbott, in his reelection campaign, and his democratic challenger, Beto O'Rourke, both started their campaigns either along the Rio Grande Valley or elsewhere along the border with Mexico. And Republicans are very excited about the prospect of flipping three US House seats in the Rio Grande Valley that are now held by Democrats.

So these are the kind of voters that could be responsible for the balance of power in the House? Absolutely.

Okay, now let's go to another state. Where do you want to zoom in, Shelby? Let's go to Pennsylvania and look at the city of Reading. These census tracts lie about 50 miles northwest of Philadelphia. In the 2016 presidential election, they were dark blue, indicating that between 80% and 90% of the vote there was democratic. But in 2020, again, we see those shades of blue get a little lighter.

And if you look at the tracks in terms of the shift, they all go red. And you traveled to reading recently. It's very different than the Rio Grande Valley. That's rural. Reading, of course, is urban. And a lot of people moved there from Philadelphia and New York.

And what issues are resonating with these voters in Redding? Well, the economy was still number one. And the economy under Trump gave the Republican Party a lot of credibility with these voters. Another thing I found was that immigration is important as an issue here. But I found that voters were disillusioned with both political parties. They might want tough border security, but for those who are already here in the country, they want to see a pathway to citizenship.

Are there any democratic policies that are turning these voters off? That's a big debate among democratic strategists. And some democratic strategists are very worried that the party has become too identified with liberal policy positions on crime and policing and on racial preferences and affirmative action. And I did hear from a number of voters that they thought that the Democratic Party was just not focusing on the issues that were important to them.

So what is at stake in Pennsylvania in 2022? Well, Pennsylvania has both an important race for the Senate and a governor's race. You have a republican legislature in Pennsylvania that wants to change the rules around voting. Having a democratic governor would make sure that the Democrats have a say in the rules around voting. And who leads the state can matter in the campaigning for the next presidential election.

All right, now let's go somewhere else where there's a different mix of voters from the ones in Pennsylvania. Yeah, Shelby, let's go to South Florida. And it really is a different kind of place. Look at all these census tracts where more than 70% of the residents are latino. We're particularly interested in the densely populated neighborhoods around Miami.

Wow. So there are a lot of these little census tracts. So at first glance, it's pretty hard to tell how much things changed between 2016 and 2020. But here's where things get super clarifying. Look at the shift between 2016 and 2020. All of these red census tracts show that voters there shifted to the right.

So in a state where population centers are pivotal, this is a big shift. Yeah, it is a big shift. And it's one reason, important reason, that Donald Trump won the state of Florida in 2020. And it's also a reason the shift in the latino vote, that republicans picked up two house seats in south Florida that had been held by Democrats.

When you think about Miami, you often think about Cuban Americans. But the latino vote there is quite diverse, right? It is. But the large presence in South Florida of latino voters who come from countries that are dictatorships, Cuba and Venezuela, noticeably meant that one issue had particular salience in South Florida, and that is the republican criticism that Democrats are going to turn the United States into a socialist country.

So what's at stake in the midterms? Well, Florida has both a governor's race and a Senate race this year. And then when you come to house districts like the two in South Florida that flipped to the Republican Party this year, it's unlikely that Democrats can win those seats back. The analysts now rate them as solidly republican, in part because of the shift in the latino vote.

So, zooming back out, these maps we're looking at show a shift between presidential elections. 2022 is not a presidential election. Do analysts think that will matter in terms of the latino vote? Well, what we have now is polling, and we have focus groups, and they suggest that, yes, what we're seeing in 2020, the shift toward the Republican Party, is continuing.

Can we see how issues are shaping the midterms already. You can see how the two parties are trying to shape the issue landscape. We're going to be the most prosperous state in the nation. We're going to open up our energy sector like you've never seen it before. We're going to work at the local, state, and federal level to continue to support a woman's right to choose. We are making sure that we are going after the criminal element that's coming across the border. The time for us to stop the next mass shooting in this country is right now, right here, today. People might have opinions about abortion, they might have opinions about the economy, they might have opinions about immigration. But that doesn't mean that that issue is the one that's gonna make them come out and vote and is gonna determine their choice of candidates. Which issues are most salient is still an open question.

Why does this kind of shift matter for the political parties? If this shift is durable, it marks a big change for the two political parties. If latino voters are shifting away from the Democratic Party and becoming more of a swing group, that means that one of the pillars of the democratic coalition is getting shaky. Republicans, on the other hand, they've become, in large part, the party of America's white working class, but they want to be a party of a working class across all racial groups. This movement among latino voters, if it continues, suggests that this is, in fact, happening, and the Republican Party can become the party of America's future by building across different races a party of America's working class.

Politics, Demographics, Midterm Elections, Economics, Inspiration, Leadership, The Wall Street Journal