Chuck Todd Says Dems Blew It With Latino Voters: ‘Total Misread’ By ‘Coastal Strategists’

NBC News chief political analyst Chuck Todd argued on Tuesday that the Democratic Party blew it with Hispanic voters in 2024 by focussing too much on identity and not enough on policy.

After Hispanic voters in certain areas voted strongly for former President Donald Trump, Todd argued:

The big story of the night is the shift among Hispanics. Look, Hispanic voters are swing voters and I think, you know, what’s interesting here is the Republican Party treated them the same way they treated White working class voters. They courted them the same way they treated White working class workers. The Democratic Party has spent a lot of time treating it as an identity group, you know, whether it’s Latinx, which sort of fell flat– and so there’s been a lot of hand-wringing about this inside Democratic circles. A real split, like, you know, it was a total misread sort of by the coastal strategists when it comes to how to target working class voters of color, and I think we’re starting to see sort of a working class coalition start to drift to the right.

He continued, “You know, before, Donald Trump had working class Whites. Now he’s adding working class Hispanics,” before adding, “That becomes a very durable majority.”

Todd went on to argue that “Latino voters, in many ways, are driven by the same issues, and there’s one issue in particular actually that Republicans align closer to Latino voters, or Latino voters align more closely to the conservative party, and that’s school choice.”

“Both Florida and Texas have been very aggressive about expanding school choice. Where have Republicans made the greatest gains among Hispanic voters? Florida and Texas,” Todd concluded. “So education, the economy, those issues, bread and butter issues, and that is how they talk to them. I’m not saying Democrats weren’t, but the cultural issues don’t play as well with Hispanic voters as they may with college-educated whites or even African Americans.”

Watch above via NBC News.