Something is afoot when two New York Times columnists, Charles Blow on the left and Ross Douthat on the right, both make the identical observation in Monday's edition.

Blow, who fears a "Biden blood bath" in the November midterms, underscored that Quinnipiac polling shows President Joe Biden's approval rating is even lower among Hispanics than whites, partly because "Hispanics hew conservative on some social issues." Douthat wrote that to win, Democrats need to do better with two groups from the Barack Obama coalition that have drifted rightward since, "culturally conservative Latinos and working class whites."

The 2020 election was a landmark for this community with an estimated 16.6 million voters, a record proportion of the electorate. There are a number of good analyses of the 2020 Hispanic vote online to consider. A Bloomberg piece reminds us "the Latinos of the United States have no single identity, no shared world view."

This article notes that Donald Trump won 53.5% in majority Hispanic precincts in Miami-Dade County on the way to carrying all-important Florida with its 29 electoral votes. Understandable aversion to any hint of "socialism" by those from Cuba, as well as Nicaragua and Venezuela, no doubt helped. In Arizona's populous Maricopa County, Trump improved his showing over 2016 in 61% of Hispanic-majority precincts. Exit polling said Trump improved over 2016 in Nevada by 8%. Other reports cited similar shifts in southern border areas of Texas. In 2004, George W. Bush proved Republicans can obtain a handsome number of Hispanic-Americans.

GetReligion's own tmatt has more than once proposed that the news media have neglected the religion aspect of recent Republican inroads and, in particular the growth of Hispanic Protestant churches. This is a big religion beat story in its own right. Or it could provide a strategic political analysis leading up to November 8 focusing either on politics nationally or on a specific regional audience.

The essential starting point for background is religion data from Pew Research Center's major survey of 5,103 U.S. Hispanic adults, in a report compiled in 2014.