Republicans have sounded alarms for more than a decade about the limits of their overwhelmingly white party. To stay competitive for the White House, strategists warned, they would need to bring more Black, Latino and other voters of color into the fold.
On Tuesday, Donald J. Trump showed how it could be done.
His victory over Vice President Kamala Harris was decisive, broad and dependent on voters from core Democratic constituencies. Results showed that Mr. Trump continued his dominance with the white, working-class voters who first propelled his political rise. But he also made modest gains in the suburbs and cities, and with Black voters, and even more significant inroads with Latinos.
Mr. Trump’s performance did not suddenly transform the Republican Party into the multiracial alliance of working-class voters that some strategists say is necessary for survival in the rapidly changing country. But he nudged it in that direction.
At a time when the nation is sharply divided — particularly between rich and poor, and between those with and without a college degree — even incremental shifts were enough to sweep Mr. Trump back into power and put him on track to win the popular vote. Conservative strategists who have pushed the party to broaden its appeal pointed to the changes as proof of concept. Democrats, who have long relied on the support of minority voters, agonized over the trends….
Nationally, Hispanic-majority counties on average shifted toward Mr. Trump by 10 percentage points. That included Yuma County, Ariz., a heavily Latino county along the southern border with Mexico, where Mr. Trump is on track to win by nearly 30 percentage points.
Mr. Trump’s gains with Black voters were less significant but still notable in smaller communities across Georgia. Hancock, Talbot and Jefferson Counties, all majority-Black counties with no more than 15,000 people, shifted toward Mr. Trump. The Trump campaign celebrated a victory in Baldwin County, Ga., where 42 percent of the population is Black. Republicans had not won the county for decades.
Asian American voters, who make up the fastest-growing eligible electorate in the country, also appeared to have drifted away from Democrats, according to exit polls and unofficial returns.
“The strength of Trump’s reach into the traditional Democratic coalition of voters of color was stunning,” said Daniel HoSang, a professor at Yale who has written about the rise of right-wing political attitudes among minority groups….