Are Democrats losing Latinos, and the election, to Donald Trump?

At a sidewalk stand staffed by Donald Trump's allies, in a bustling Hispanic hub in the critical election state of Pennsylvania, a man seeking voter-registration papers describes the moment his political views shifted.

"La pandemia," says Jorge Lami, who plans to cast his first-ever ballot for Trump.

The pandemic. 

It comes up frequently in discussions about why Democrats risk losing Latino voters for the third straight election, with potentially game-changing electoral consequences.

Lami, a Dominican-born Uber driver, laments the economic pain of recent years, first with businesses shut down, then with inflation, which has just finally eased.

He lives in the majority-Latino city of Allentown, Pa. Democrats typically dominate here, yet on this day, many cars honk their horns and pedestrians sporadically offer thumbs-up as they pass the Trump stand. 

In a nearby county, Karen Acuna Bertolo reached the same conclusion, albeit earlier than Lami: She became a Trump supporter in 2020. 

A mother and business owner, she says her turning point came amid prolonged school shutdowns and destructive anti-police protests — she blamed Democrats for both.

"That's when it changed for me. I became Republican," said the Nicaraguan-born woman, who co-owns a refrigeration-products business with her husband near Philadelphia.

Latino Democrats have expressed concern and urged their party to strengthen its ground game in Pennsylvania, a state that could prove decisive in the presidential election.

The election may hinge on a crude equation: Will more working-class voters of colour shift to Trump than college-educated whites move away from him?

To be clear, Trump isn't expected to win most Latino voters: Polls do suggest he could keep gaining ground, and potentially even rival George W. Bush's two-decade-old Republican record of 44 per cent of Hispanic voters.

Everything hinges on the extent of the shift, according to one longtime political operative, author, and expert on Latino voters.

"Is it one or two points? That's surmountable [for Democrats]," said Mike Madrid.