Latino households spend about $4,900/year on gasoline vs. $3,600 for non-Latino households, about 36% more, and they are more likely to drive, carpool, have older cars, and be unable to work from home.
In my February polling with Binder Research for The Latino Working Class Project - the cost of gas was a major concern driving affordability as a top concern.
Nearly 77% in California blamed state regulations as the reason BUT that was before the Iran war
A recent Berkeley IGS/LA Times poll found gas prices were a serious problem for 85% of Latino voters, 75% of voters under 30, and lower-income voters were hit hardest.
As far back as 2022 California polling found one in four Latino adults said high gas prices caused severe financial hardship, with another 49% reporting moderate hardship.
These voters blamed Biden then…and Trump now.
In April 2026, national average gas prices have surged past $4 per gallon for the first time since August 2022, driven by conflict in the Middle East. While current prices are high, they remain below the record-setting, $5+ a gallon average seen in June 2022.
Bad news for Trump
California research shows Latinos, younger voters, lower-income residents, renters, and commuters are among those most burdened by rising gas prices. Latino men under 35 likely sit at the intersection of several of these high-impact groups
Rising gas prices will cause a historic shift away from Trump and Republicans not just reducing recent historic gains…remember Republicans are relying on this demo to win seats in Texas and elsewhere as part of their ‘racial realignment’ strategy.
HUGE mistake
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There’s a bitter contradiction unfolding in Latino politics: Latino voters are increasingly rejecting Republicans because of ICE overreach—even as the ICE agents who killed Alex Pretti were themselves Latino. 1/5 A short 🧵to explain
The unmasking of the agents involved in Pretti’s killing won’t calm the outrage. It sharpens it. The issue isn’t ethnicity—its power, impunity, & an enforcement culture that treats entire communities as suspect.
BUT Latino ICE agents complicate things 2/5
For many Latino voters, from Miami to Dallas, ICE raids are the breaking point. “Law and order” loses its appeal when it becomes unchecked state violence, shielded from accountability, defended reflexively by one political party. 3/5
History rarely lets us pin imperial decline to one man. But at the pace of American devolution, Trump’s name will likely be etched into the story,perhaps in faux gold.
The fall of empires follows patterns. What differs is how people respond to lost status.🧵
Some societies accept decline with realism & adapt.
Others suffer a kind of phantom limb syndrome, lashing out at a world that no longer bends to them. The Aztecs fell to Spanish power with resentment. Faced with diminishment its leaders chose destruction over accommodation. 2/5
After Appomattox, the American South followed similarly. Rather than rebuild, it invented the Lost Cause—turning defeat into myth & grievance into identity. Preserving hierarchy mattered more than prosperity.The result was a century of poverty,violence,& arrested development. 3/5
In the waning days of the reign of Roman Emperor Caligula, we see a ruler who began with public favor & ended in absolute isolation.
His descent into decadence and self-worship wasn’t sudden — it was a slow erosion of norms that eventually ate the institutions around him. 1/5🧵
Caligula’s final months were marked by divine pretensions, humiliating demands & the humiliation of political rivals.
Sound familiar?
He famously declared himself a god, tightened his grip on power, & punished dissent with cruelty that turned colleagues into conspirators. 2/5
The elite of Rome knew the madness wouldn’t last forever. While public spectacle and lavish pageantry masked an empty treasury, fear and obedience replaced any real loyalty. Senators applauded in public while whispering threats in private. 3/5
Like a lot of us, I’ve spent too many hours in early 2026 doom-scrolling. Last night I saw Rachel Maddow asked whether protests after the murder of Renee Good would matter—or whether protests ever matter at all.
Her answer stopped me cold. 🧵
Maddow cited the 3.5% Rule: political scientists have found that when 3.5% of a population engages in sustained, nonviolent protest, authoritarian regimes topple.
In 30+ years of political consulting, I’d never heard this.
So I looked deeper.
There’s real evidence behind it.
The murder of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent ignited something already building. Within days, protests erupted across red and blue states alike—spontaneous, decentralized, organic.
This wasn’t paid protesters.
It was Americans deciding that silence = complicity.
Venezuelans make up a very small portion of the total U.S. Latino electorate, accounting for approximately 1% of the U.S. Hispanic population as of 2021 data.
As for voters it’s probably half a percent above or below that - most of it located in Florida. 🧵
What about Cubans?
Both Cubans and Dominicans each make up less than 7% of eligible Latino voters.
Again, Cubans are most determinative in Florida.
So will the Venezuelan situation impact the Latino vote?
If there is an impact nationally it certainly won’t have anything to do with Latino affinity across national origin or sympathies for or against ‘socialism’.
That’s Cold War nonsense usually espoused by a small handful of anti-communists from those countries & I agree with them