No es Nada del Otro Mundo: Dissecting the racial and motivational predictors of the “Latino Vote”

Abstract

The 2024 U.S. Presidential election highlighted Latine voters’ increasingly pivotal role in American politics, as their record-high support for Republican candidates helped Donald Trump clinch the presidency. While many observers were surprised by this development, a historical look at Latines’ complex and shifting political allegiances exposes motivational processes amenable to social-psychological analysis. Using two samples of U.S. Latines, we argue that their political behavior is traceable, in part, to differences in racial phenotypicality (i.e., the tendency to be perceived as “White” vs. “non-White”) and desires for individual-level power. Racial phenotypicality is theorized to influence the plausibility, and power motives the desirability, of psychological ties to the hegemonic national (i.e., American) group. Latines’ prioritization of national over ethnic identity, in turn, acts as a proximal determinant of pro-Republican political affinities. In Study 1 (N = 3753), greater physical resemblance to a prototypical (White, non-Hispanic) American indirectly predicted affinity for Republicans in 2020 via increased feelings of inclusion in U.S. society and prioritization of American over Latine identity. In Study 2 (N = 493), White racial phenotypicality heightened the link between power motives and positive attachment to Americanness, amplifying support for Republicans in 2024.