Dem strategists on Latinos moving right: 'They don't like socialists'

Some Democratic strategists say conservative Hispanics’ massive shift away from their party toward Republicans is likely due to crime, treating Latino voters as single-issue voters and the embrace of the far left.

"They don't like the socialists," Hank Sheinkopf, veteran Democratic political consultant and president of Sheinkopf Communications, told Fox News about Hispanic Americans.

"They don't like the abortion argument being thrust at them on a constant basis. They don’t like the crime. They don’t like the chaos. And they’re responding."

According to a poll conducted by NBC News, Telemundo and the Wall Street Journal released earlier this month, 73% Hispanics who described themselves as conservative say they preferred Republicans in control of Congress – a 56-point shift away from Democrats in just one decade.

Sheinkopf also said Democrats “always" do worse than they think they are going to do when "chaos" is occurring in the United States and warned that Democrats are "failing to understand" that abortion is not the "end-all be-all,” according to Fox News.

"So now you're having a nationwide uptick in crime," Sheinkopf said, referring to surging crime in urban areas. "Homicides are up. Who pays the price for circumstances like that? The party in power."

Another Democratic strategist said that the poll results were likely an outlier but acknowledged that Democrats should begin focusing on issues besides immigration when speaking to Latino communities, highlighting how Republicans have made significant gains with Hispanic voters who live near the U.S.-Mexico border.

"I think that there's been a lot of movement by the Hispanic community away from being single-issue voters,” Jennifer Holdworth told Fox News.

“It's not just about immigration. They’re a community of faith. There's a lot of small businesses. It's health care and housing prices. Ironically, it's about a lot of issues that Democrats are very strong on. But if we singularly message to the Latino and Hispanic community about immigration, we're doing ourselves a disservice in talking to those voters."

Progressive pollster David Shor warned of a rightward trend among minorities, especially self-described conservatives, in a post-mortem of the 2020 election where he noted that then-President Donald Trump had a more racially diverse voting base than Mitt Romney in 2012, who ran as a welcoming “Big Tent” Republican.