Going right?

 There's been a lot of talk recently about Blacks and Latinos shifting to the Republican party (an example).   Most of the accounts I've seen say that it results from a weakening of party loyalty, so that Black and Latino conservatives start moving to their "natural" home.  However, you would expect that to be a gradual process, much of it the result of generational replacement--why would it be happening now more than it was 10, 20, or 30 years ago?  I looked at the Echelon Insights surveys, which ask people about their views of Joe Biden and Donald Trump, comparing the latest one available (Feb 2024) to October 2021, which I chose as the baseline so that we would be past Biden's "honeymoon" and the reaction to January 6 would have had time to fade.  The figure shows change in mean favorability (4=very favorable, 3=somewhat favorable, 2=somewhat unfavorable, 1=very unfavorable), for groups that were included in  reports (party, race/ethnicity, sex, income, education).

Biden's ratings have declined among most groups, and Trumps have risen, but three stand out:  blacks, Hispanics, and people without a college degree.  These groups have had the largest anti-Biden and pro-Trump shifts.  People without a college degree are different from Blacks and Hispanics because they already gave strong support to Trump--that is, the decline of party loyalty explanation can't account for their change.  Is there any common factor that might explain the recent shift of these three groups?  I think that it might be the increase in foreign conflicts and illegal immigration.  

As I've mentioned before, many people think that other countries take advantage of the United States--they we try to be fair but they don't.  The political importance of this feeling is likely to increase when times are tough--people will think that under the circumstances we can't afford to worry about other countries and their problems and need to focus on our own national interests.  This point is relevant to the group shifts because blacks, Hispanics, and less educated people tend to be more suspicious of others--less likely to think that other people can be trusted or will generally treat you fairly--and the differences are big by the standard of individual-level survey data.  That suggests that they will respond more strongly to the kind of appeals that Trump makes.  But it also suggests that they may shift strongly in the other direction if Biden seems to be getting things under control.