In 1892, Starr County, Texas, voted to reelect Republican President Benjamin Harrison. The president lost, and Starr County turned blue for over 130 years, until the 2024 presidential election.
On Tuesday, Donald Trump earned 9,443 votes in the county, which is 97% Hispanic or Latino, and Kamala Harris received 6,845 votes, according to the Texas Secretary of State’s Office.
Starr County is located in the Rio Grande Valley and is one of 18 Texas counties that sits on or within 20 miles of Mexico’s border. Trump won 14 out of the 18 Texas border counties, many of which were Democrat strongholds.
Starr, Hidalgo, Willacy, and Cameron counties comprise most of the Rio Grande Valley. Despite voting for Joe Biden in 2020, Hillary Clinton in 2016, and Barack Obama in 2012 and 2008, all four Rio Grande Valley counties supported Trump in 2024.
Trump’s victory in the valley “is historic,” Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, said during a recent conversation on “The Daily Signal Podcast.”
Trump’s victory in the border counties, which have a large Hispanic population, is due in part to his strong performance among Latino voters.
In fact, 46% of Latino voters in the U.S. backed Trump in 2024, up from 34% in 2020, according to Reuters. Trump performed especially well among Hispanic males, who supported him with 55% of their vote.
He won more Latino voters than any Republican president in recent history, and the big question is, Why?
The Border
“Biden and Harris throwing the border open and allowing millions upon millions to stream in for a reason that we haven’t yet really understood was the deciding factor,” said Gonzalez, author of “A Race for the Future: How Conservatives Can Break the Liberal Monopoly on Hispanic Americans.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents have encountered more than 10 million illegal aliens at America’s borders under the Biden-Harris administration.
The “invasion” at the southern border “created a sense of chaos,” Frank Lopez, former Border Patrol agent and Val Verde County, Texas, resident told The Daily Signal. Lopez’s county borders Mexico and also voted for Trump in 2024 and 2020, but for Clinton in 2016.
“The reason we elected Trump is because one thing that’s respected is doing what you say you’re going to do,” Lopez said, speaking for those in the Hispanic American community. “Trump, one thing he did was, the border was under control.”
Traditional Values
Much of the Hispanic community holds conservative values, says Lopez, who ran to be the Republican candidate for Texas’ 23rd Congressional District in 2024 but lost in the primary to incumbent Tony Gonzales.
“The woke LGBTQ stuff does not sit well with very traditional family-centric morals and values,” Lopez said.
The Biden-Harris administration has promoted an LGBTQ agenda throughout the federal government and recently introduced a rule change to Title IX of the Education Amendments to redefine “sex” to include gender identify and sexual orientation. Such a change that includes these categories under sex discrimination prohibitions in federally funded education programs would swing the door open for men who identity as women to compete in women’s sports and enter female-only spaces such as locker rooms, and vice versa.
Lopez added that pro-life Hispanic voters also saw Trump as the “lesser of two evils” on the issue of abortion.
“Texas IS getting more red,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott wrote on X Friday in response to a map showing an increasing number of Texas counties turning red in the last three elections.
“One big reason is that Hispanics in Texas have realized that Republicans align with their values of faith, family, freedom, and free enterprise,” Abbott wrote. “They support capitalism & pro-energy production policies & no boys in girls sports.”
Patriotism
Trump is “proud to be an American,” Lopez said.
“He loves America. He believes in America. He believes that we can get it done through hard work, having a vision and pursuing it, and that resounds with the [Hispanic] community,” he said.
Because many Hispanics families have a family member who served in the military, a sense of patriotism is a “huge component of why we go for him.”
Asked if the shift to the right among Hispanic voters is indicative of a permanent change, Gonzalez said it is too soon to know for sure.
Regarding policy issues, he says Hispanic voters are “just Americans,” adding, “They want the same things that all the other Americans want.”
