Latinos tend to be Democrats? Latinos who are Republican must be moderates and not feel welcome within the party?

A new University of Houston study seeks to debunk these common misconceptions about Latino voters.

The growing community in Texas will play a key role in the 2020 election, said Brandon Rottinghaus, lead author of the study and a political science professor at the university.

“The Latinx vote will be the decisive part of the 2020 election,” Rottinghaus said, using a gender-neutral term for the demographic group. “Republicans have long counted on a base of support from the Latinx community. If they don’t hold that support in 2020, Texas will turn blue.”

Here are some of the myths Rottinghaus and co-author Rudy Fonseca, field director for the Harris County Republican Party, examined:

Myth: Latinos are natural Democrats.

Study results: Texas is not like most other states when it comes to Latino support. Twenty-seven percent of Hispanic people in Texas identified with the Republican party, a 2014 Gallup poll showed, compared to 21 percent in all other states at the time.

Whether Republicans will be able to retain that support is still unclear. A September 2019 University of Houston and Univision poll showed that most Latinos — 69 percent — say they’ll vote or are leaning toward voting for a Democratic candidate, while 19 percent said they plan to support or are leaning toward supporting President Donald Trump.

For subscribers: The Latino vote: A Texas tale of growth and misconceptions

Myth: Latino Republicans are less conservative than other Republicans.

Study results: While it’s true polling has shown Latino Republicans identify as less conservative than other Republicans in Texas, they don’t identify more often as moderates. Still, they are less likely to identify as being extremely Republican.

A Texas Tribune poll from October 2016 showed Latino Republicans were more likely to self-identify as “somewhat conservative” than all Republicans. Thirty-seven percent of all Republicans saw themselves as “extremely conservative” as opposed to 19 percent of Latino Republicans.

This split is important, the study authors noted, because if the GOP continues to move further to the right, they risk losing more moderate Latino voters.

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Myth: Latino Republicans are growing more moderate as Republican Party rhetoric grows more conservative.

Study results: That same Texas Tribune poll in 2018 showed Latino Republicans are actually more likely to identify as “extremely conservative” than the previous poll showed — with 27 percent identifying as such last year compared to 19 percent in 2016.

Latino Republicans are indeed less likely than other Republicans to support Trump’s handling of border security (43 percent approved compared to 58 percent of all Republicans), trade negotiations (50 percent versus 61 percent of all Republicans) and judicial nominees (48 percent versus 71 percent).

Sixty-three percent of Latino Republicans said they thought “Trump cares about people like you” and 68 percent said they thought “Trump has the temperament to effectively serve as president,” while 80 percent of all Republicans agreed with those statements.

For subscribers: Latinos are waking up to the duplicity of the Democrats [Opinion]

Myth: Latinos only support the Republican Party because they are culturally conservative.

Study results: This is true, but there are other factors that engender Latino Republican support. Some of those less-often-discussed factors include home ownership, having lived in the U.S. for multiple generations and higher incomes.

Myth: Latino Republicans are “softer” on illegal voting and immigration than other Republicans.

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Study results: While the 2016 Texas Tribune poll showed they tend to view such issues as less serious, they are still closer in their views to fellow Republicans than to Democrats.

One exception is deportation: The poll showed 19 percent of Latino Republicans “strongly agreed” with the statement that “undocumented immigrants should be deported immediately,” as opposed to 35 percent of all Republicans.

This, too, could be changing: 34 percent of Latino Republicans “strongly agreed” with that statement in 2018, as support similarly increased among all Republicans to 48 percent.

For subscribers: Have Democrats turned the corner with Latino voters? [Opinion]

Myth: Latinos don’t feel welcome in the Republican Party.

Study results: This would appear to be false. The 2016 Texas Tribune poll showed that 61 percent of self-identified Latino Republicans felt welcome compared to 68 percent of all Republicans.

Meanwhile, Latino Republicans were more likely than other Republicans to see the Democratic Party as welcoming (20 percent as opposed to 8 percent of all Republicans). Just 4 percent of Latino Democrats felt welcome in the Republican Party, the poll showed.

There’s room for improvement in the Republican Party: The September 2019 University of Houston and Univision poll showed that 56 percent of Texas Latinos think Democratic candidates are “doing a good job” reaching out to their community. Just 22 percent of Texas Latinos thought the Republican candidates were doing the same.