Latino men are a bright spot in Donald Trump’s faltering campaign

THE LAST Republican presidential candidate to lose the state of Texas, Gerald Ford, choked on a delicious tamale during a campaign stop at the Alamo. He tried to eat the Mexican speciality without removing its corn-husk wrapping. He won 18% of the Latino vote, and the support of 130,000 fewer Texans than Jimmy Carter. Many Republicans still believe that the “Great Tamale Incident” cost him re-election. Almost half a century later, polls suggest a Republican may be on the verge of choking in Texas again.

Donald Trump has found other ways to offend Mexican-Americans. “He’s a bad husband, he doesn’t pay his taxes and he separated lots of children from their parents. How good that we can separate ourselves from him!” says Santiago Ramos García, a retired shoe-seller in Houston who has already cast his vote for Joe Biden. The fast-swelling ranks of Latinos, many of whom feel that the Republican Party would prefer America without them, have transformed Texas from a jewel in the Republican crown to a battleground. Mr Trump’s sagging popularity among white women and the elderly is hastening the change.