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SAN DIEGO -- It's been nearly eight months since the 2024 presidential election, and Americans are still debating what happened, why it happened and what it means that it happened.

The Pew Research Center recently provided more grist for the mill when it released an extensive study of nearly 9,000 voters conducted in the weeks following the election. The sample is huge, given that most respectable studies will usually survey about 1,000 people.

One finding that leaps off the page is with what happened with the so-called Hispanic vote.

First things first. I say "so-called" because whether there is even such a thing as the Hispanic vote is very much an open question. The answer to that question is: "no" and "yes."

It's "no" because the nation's 65 million Hispanics -- and the 36 million of them who were eligible to vote on Nov. 5, 2024, according to Pew -- don't speak with one voice or share one opinion on most issues. We're divided by age, gender, location, ideology, income bracket, party affiliation, education level, country of origin and other factors.

It's "yes" because Hispanics close ranks when attacked. It happened in 1994, when 78% of Hispanic voters in California opposed Proposition 187, a spiteful ballot measure that denied undocumented immigrants and their children access to education, social services and nonemergency health care. It happened again in 2010, in Arizona, when polls showed 81% of Hispanics opposing SB 1070, a state law that required local and state police to enforce federal immigration even if it meant engaging in ethnic profiling.

Thankfully, the federal courts struck down as unconstitutional all of Prop. 187 and elements of SB 1070.

The Pew study found that Trump did slightly better with Hispanic voters than what has been reported up to now.

In November, exit polls showed that Trump won about 46% of the Hispanic vote. The Pew study puts the figure at 48%, with Vice President Kamala Harris getting 51%.

Harris' performance with Hispanics was pathetic. In 2020, Joe Biden got 61% of the Hispanic vote. In 2016, Hillary Clinton got 66%. And, in 2012, Barack Obama got 71%.

Even if you put aside Obama and focus only on Democrats who ran against Trump, Harris was an underachiever.

For Democrats, those figures sting. Harris supporters have spent the last eight months lashing out at Hispanic voters for what they see as an act of betrayal. Because most of those Harris supporters are in denial about all that was wrong with their candidate, they assume there must be something wrong with Hispanics.

Some have even suggested that the real reason that roughly half of Hispanics didn't support Harris is because they're sexist and racist.

That's an ugly accusation. It's also a tough argument to make given the strong support that Hispanics showed Clinton and Obama.

Hispanic voters support the person, not the party, and likability counts for a lot. And the more you look at it, the more it seems that Hispanics really liked Trump. They also really disliked Harris, who -- even though she hailed from California, which is nearly 40% Hispanic -- never gave my tribe the time of day.

Meanwhile, Democrats of all colors insist that the support that Hispanics have shown for Trump is blowing up in their face in light of a barbaric immigration crackdown that has led to widespread profiling and harassment of all sorts of Hispanics -- including U.S. citizens.

Yet, according to polls, immigration has not been a top concern for Hispanics. We care about the same issues as other Americans -- jobs, inflation, crime, education, health care and the economy among them.

In fact, the Pew study found that naturalized citizens - that is, immigrants who have U.S. citizenship and who made up 9% of the electorate on election day - roughly split their support evenly with 51% voting for Harris and 47% for Trump.

When talking about the Hispanic vote, don't miss the irony. Since the 1980s, Republicans have -- leaning into their nativist instincts -- criticized Hispanics for not assimilating into the American mainstream. On their drive to work, they'd see a Spanish-language ad for beer on a billboard, and they'd panic.

Republicans were wrong to worry. Hispanics did assimilate -- in ways that were unexpected, and frightening.

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To find out more about Ruben Navarrette and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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