With the results of the 2024 presidential election, it is clear that the majority of Latino men turned away from the Democratic party’s candidate to vote for the Republican this cycle. Not only has the media been consumed with understanding what happened, countless news reports offer shock, even disgust, at a voting segment presumed to be an essential part of the Democratic base. How could these men not have understood “the assignment”? While the election results may have shocked observers around the world, winning a US election with the support of Latino voters is not new. It is a phenomenon that has been growing in ebbs and flows over the last twenty years since George W. Bush received 40 percent of the Latino vote to win the presidency in 2004. Join us for an informal conversation with Dr. Lorena Chambers about Latino voting trends in the 2024 election and their historical antecedents.

A scholar of cultural, gender, and Latina/o history, Dr. Lorena Chambers is a postdoctoral research fellow with the Inclusive History Project at the University of Michigan and is affiliated with the Department of History, where she is writing a manuscript based on her dissertation: “From Statecraft to Stagecraft: The Politics of Peddling ‘Mexicanidad’ in US Culture, 1886-1906.” Her second book project, premised on oral histories, primary sources, and her professional work experience, chronicles the history of Latino voter outreach of the Democratic establishment from 2000 through the 2024 presidential election. She is one of two women, and the only Latina, to have produced broadcast commercials for a US presidential campaign.