Tanzina Vega: I'm Tanzina Vega and welcome back to The Takeaway. When Donald Trump announced he was running for president, one of the first groups he disparaged were Mexican migrants.

President Trump: When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're sending people that have lots of problems. They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists. They are not our friend, believe me.

Tanzina: Those comments set the tone for President Trump's large-scale anti-immigrant rhetoric throughout his administration and yet Mexican Americans represent the largest group of eligible voters among Latinos in the United States. As we've been exploring on our series about the Latino vote A Votar, generational and geographical differences are a huge factor in how Mexican Americans are engaging politically right now. About 60% of Latinos who are eligible to vote are of Mexican descent and that's 18.3 million people. Here to help us break it all down is Bernard Fraga, associate professor of political science at Emory University. Bernard, thanks for being with me.

Bernard Fraga: Thanks for having me.

Tanzina: When we talk about this major percentage of the Latino vote, who are we talking about? How do we define this group?

Bernard: When we think about the Mexican descent population in the United States, we're talking about a population that has been here for well over 150 years, primarily located in the Southwest in the states like California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, but a large share of other states as well, especially when isolating the Latino population. In almost every state outside of the Northeast and Florida, Mexican Americans or Mexican descended Latinos make up the largest Latino subgroup.

Tanzina: Let's talk about generational differences given that. I've had conversations with folks who have said if you're talking about the Mexican vote or the Mexican American vote, you could talk about someone who's been here for one generation or someone who's been here for eight generations. How do things break down generationally?

Bernard: Generation works in an interesting way for Mexican Americans. Part of the story is the narrative that is told about family origins. Immigration is a very salient issue to many Mexican Americans, even those who are born in the United States or whose grandparents were born in the United States. However, when we look at the population and think about age and generational differences, one thing we noticed is that the citizen population, that is the eligible to vote population, is primarily US-born, about 80% US-born, and very, very young, millennial and Gen Z. About half of Mexican Americans who are eligible to vote are millennial or Gen Z.

Generation plays an important factor, but it's much more about the narrative that's told about the immigration experience, whether it's a story about being undocumented and coming over or about being here for many, many generations.

Tanzina: Now, where does race fit into this conversation? Because we know many Latinos tend to vote Democrat, but there has been consistent support for President Trump despite early comments that we just played at the top of the segment. Are Mexican Americans or some percentage of the Mexican vote right now, still supporting the President?

Bernard: Sure. Given the fact that Mexican Americans have such a large share of that Latino population, when we talk about Trans and Latino partisanship, more than two-thirds of that is Trans and Mexican-American partisanship. What we've seen for about 20 or 30 years now is maybe 70% of Mexican Americans identify as Democrats of the two-party share and about 30% identify as Republicans.

Even with Donald Trump running for office, and now running for re-election, that Republican share of the Mexican American population has continued to support him, again, despite that rhetoric. We're not seeing as a large share of Mexican American Democrats supporting or shifting their support towards Republicans or Donald Trump.

Tanzina: How much of that support for the President has to do with something that is often not talked about as much in Latino populations, but anti-racism, quite frankly.

Bernard: I think that's very important. That feeds into both Republican identification, given the Republican Party's current stand on issues of racial justice in addition to immigration, but also for the small share of Mexican Americans, especially in the border regions like South Texas, where Mexican Americans make up a large share of the population, their opposition to racial justice and really anti-Black affect is a big part of the support for Donald Trump.

You see this manifesting and not just in terms of voting patterns, but in terms of attitudes, we can measure. We can see that there is this persistent anti-Black specifically, anti-African-American and anti-racial justice attitude that's held, again, on the small share of the Mexican American population, but the share that tends to support Donald Trump.

Tanzina: Bernard, what differences do we see between naturalized citizens, Chicanos, and descendants of Mexican immigrants? Are there differences based on that?

Bernard: It's really fascinating because I think that the-- again, it's the narrative that people tell about their family history and their origin story. The vast majority of Mexican Americans are us born, about 80% are us born. Under some definitions that's Mexican American or Chicano, although Chicano is not a label that many Mexican Americans use anymore or use primarily anymore, but I think, again, it's about a narrative of the immigration story.

If population says, look born in the US or have been here for many generations, maybe immigration is not as salient. For other groups, including for people who identify as Chicano, despite being here for two or three generations, still identifying very heavily with both Mexican ancestry and identity, but also with that immigration narrative. Again, this crosses the actual reality of the immigration story and instead is about the narrative that has been constructed.

For people who identify with that immigrant experience, whether or not they're immigrants or directly descended from immigrants, they tend to be much more positive in terms of their feelings about immigration and their feelings about the need for immigration reform. For others, even if they're immigrants themselves, they feel like they've lived the American dream. They might not identify with undocumented migrants and they might oppose immigration reform.

Tanzina: How has the population shifted geographically? I think often we think mostly of California, but this population has also shifted and I think we're seeing a lot of that even with the Puerto Rican population, which was traditionally in New York and maybe some parts of Massachusetts, which has also now begun to spread out across the United States. Has the Mexican American population also shifted?

Bernard: I have to say yes and no. If we think about the Mexican origin population as a whole, we know that the migrant population, the non-naturalized population has spread out into non-traditional immigration locales, places like North Carolina, places like Georgia, but if we talk about the US foreign Mexican American population and we talk about how young that population is, again, it's still primarily concentrated in the Southwest. 82% of Latinos who are eligible to vote in California are Mexican descent. 86% in Texas are Mexican descent, 87% in Arizona.

The mass of the Mexican American population that is eligible to vote is still in the Southwest. Although again, when we talk about younger Mexican Americans, the descendants of immigrants, that's where we see more spread in places like Georgia, Indiana, the Midwest, even the Northeast.

Tanzina: Bernard, one of the tragedies that we've experienced in the past couple of years, aimed at Latinos specifically on the border was a horrific shooting that took place in a Walmart where the shooter aimed his hatred and his rhetoric at Latinos. Has that energized this vote in particular?

Bernard: I think what it's done is made really clear that no matter your citizenship, your generational status, whatever progress has been made for Mexican Americans and for Latinos as a whole, that Mexican Americans, this is in the Southwest, still face significant discrimination and oppression, even in places where Latinos make up a large share of the population and have political power and our communities are still going to be facing attacks.

I think that even the election of Donald Trump really symbolizes that too. Despite years of rhetoric from Republicans and Democrats saying that they were going to outreach the Latino vote to Mexican Americans, that this was part of the American story and the appointment of Mexican Americans in high ranking positions in both parties, you still see these incidences of frankly racism and xenophobia manifesting even, again, for people who are born in the United States, who are citizens, who have a narrative of being in this country for 150, 175 years, still going to be facing these racist attacks.

Tanzina: Bernard, how well have either of the campaigns done in outreach to this population specifically?

Bernard: Frankly, it's mixed. I think that when we think about campaigns in the 1950s and 1960s, really the origin of outreach to Latino communities, it was primarily targeting Mexican Americans and US-born Mexican Americans who had been here for many generations. That's still an important part of both party's campaign effort but I think that in the recent times, when we talk about immigration reform, the failure of immigration reform, and really the salients of Florida, in the national political scene, Florida stayed where Mexican Americans only make up 10% of the Latino population.

The campaign effort has not been targeted to the issues and the identity of the Mexican American population. I think that Bernie Sanders's campaign and his effort in the primary to reach out to Mexican Americans in the Southwest was an effort to shift that. I think that even the Biden campaign and the work that they're doing in Texas is trying to reach out to Mexican Americans where, if they turned out of high rates, would really dominate the political scene and the Democratic Party in a big state like Texas.

Tanzina: I haven't seen it as much as my friend, Julio Varella often says 'hispandering' this year which is pandering to the Latino voter population. Have you been satisfied?

Bernard: I think that there needs to be more effort to outreach to the Latino community. I think that this needs to be deeper than just the cliche cultural references. It's more than just hanging out with a mariachi. It has to be really talking about the issues that Mexican Americans and Latino population as a whole care about. That's more than just immigration. Again, 80% of Mexican Americans born in the United States. Immigration is an important issue, but healthcare. When we think about the COVID-19 crisis that is disproportionately impacting the Latino population, the Mexican American population of the Southwest, Latinos want answers.

Tanzina: We'll see whether or not they get them come November 3rd, or even now as we head into, we're in the middle of early voting. Bernard Fraga is an associate professor of political science at Emory University. Bernard, thanks so much for joining me.

Bernard: Thank you again for having me.

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