As Justin Hodge’s daughter played at a park in San Ysidro, he watched protectively from a picnic bench. But there’s something else coming that Hodge feared he might not be able to protect his family from.
“I’m scared.” Hodge said. “I’m scared for them more than anything.”
With President-elect Donald Trump taking office Monday, Hodge worries about both his daughters, 7 and 15. For president, he voted for Vice President Kamala Harris believing she would have a better chance at moving the country forward.
“I honestly just didn't want to go backwards. I don't want to ‘make America great again,’” he said, referring to Trump’s campaign slogan. “America was never great to begin with for people of color, so I just didn't want that.”
But the same news that makes Hodge scared for the future makes Leonard Cuen, whose family owns San Ysidro Feed & Supply, just down the street from the playground, optimistic about his.
“I'm excited. I'm excited, I'm excited,” Cuen said. “I can't wait to see how much my taxes dropped. I can't wait to hear all my buddies that are looking for jobs, telling me they got jobs.”
Political attitudes are shifting on a national scale and locally. Although Harris won a majority of votes across the county, she received more than 120,000 fewer votes than Joe Biden did in 2020. Voter turnout was down overall in November, but Trump lost a fraction of the votes Democrats did between the elections.
In fact, Trump made gains, winning more votes and losing by smaller margins in some communities, according to a KBPS analysis of vote data from both years.
The KBPS analysis relied on maps created by consolidating precinct data received from the San Diego County Registrar of Voters. The maps only show votes for Democratic and Republican candidates, not third party candidates.
Among the communities with the most significant rightward shift is San Ysidro, whose residents are 90% Hispanic and live along the U.S.-Mexico border. Harris won a majority of votes there, too, but Trump gained about 13 percentage points compared to 2020.
Similarly in Chula Vista, where about 60% of residents are Hispanic, Trump gained about 7 percentage points, winning 41% of the vote in November.
Meanwhile, Democrats lost ground in Chula Vista and San Ysidro: Harris had 17,000 fewer votes than Biden in the communities combined.
Political scientists say more research is needed to understand what that rightward shift means, but that San Ysidro and Chula Vista had particularly pronounced rightward shifts provides a clue.
“That could certainly be part of that national trend among conservative leaning Latinos to realign with the Republican Party,” said Casey Dominguez, a professor and department chair of political science and international relations at the University of San Diego.
That “ideological sorting” could be driven by Latinos with more conservative views on a variety of issues, from immigration to the economy to abortion, Dominguez said.
Hector Gastelum, another Chula Vista resident, voted for Trump in all three general elections he ran in. Gastelum said he is a lifelong Republican, but has become more conservative as he’s gotten involved in politics. He thinks other Latinos will do the same.
“Most Latinos go to church. Most Latinos are conservative. But they’re not Republican yet,” said Gastelum, who was a member of a local water board and ran for mayor of Chula Vista in 2018.
Gastelum said the high cost of groceries, gas and housing under Biden have “punished regular citizens” and that the Latinos joining the Republican Party are “here to stay.”
“Republicans need to make sure they deliver on promises to keep Latinos long term,” Gastelum said.
Cuen, the owner of the feed and supply store on San Ysidro Boulevard, said Trump’s first term has already proven his success.
“All my taxes went down, all my customers making more money, all my customers spending more money because they had more,” Cuen said.
The biggest issue for Cuen in this election was immigration, but he thinks Trump will do a better job on foreign policy and the economy.
There are other explanations for Trump’s win and increased support for him locally, including the global “anti-incumbent” trend, Dominguez said. That movement is “elevating left-wing parties in places that had been governed by conservatives, and right-wing parties in places that had been governed by moderates and liberals,” she said.
Thad Kousser, a political science professor at UC San Diego, puts emphasis on the idea that Trump’s win could be more due to Democratic voters not showing up to vote. Voter turnout overall was down in 2024 compared to 2020, when there was record turnout following the pandemic.
“The story of 2024 was demoralized Democrats,” Kousser said, including those who were “unenthusiastic” about the economy.
For Carlos Castro, a Chula Vista resident, it wasn’t the economy but United States support for Israel in the war in Gaza that convinced him not to vote for either candidate. In the 2020 election, Castro voted for then-Democratic candidate Joe Biden. This year, he wrote-in for Green Party candidate Jill Stein.
“With the recent news of how the Democrats have been handling, and how much of our tax money had been sent to Israel to this genocide, I just didn't want to be part of that anymore,” Castro said.
That was also a top issue for Sebastian Martinez, a Chula Vista resident who does community service work, including with the food bank and unhoused people. He also didn’t vote for Trump or Harris.
“On all the core issues that I do work in, Democrats have not shown up to the table on that, and it’s just frustrating to keep being a part of that cycle,” Martinez said.
U.S. support for Israel drove a partisan divide nationally. Voters who said U.S. support for Israel is too strong were more likely to have voted for Harris, according to exit polls. Meanwhile, Trump voters made up most of those who said that support is not strong enough.
Arturo Castro, a resident of neighboring Bonita, where voting trends were similar to Chula Vista’s, voted for Harris because “she’s more honest.” He said his priority was “having someone who’s truthful in the White House and doesn’t embarrass the country with lies, makes up stories and isn’t accountable for his actions.”
Khristina Lambert, a National City resident who was with her toddler at a Chula Vista park on a recent afternoon, said she didn’t vote for president in November because she didn’t like either candidate. But now that Trump is leading the country for another four years, she’s bracing herself and her family.
“I just keep praying. Can't do nothing but pray,” Lambert said. “You just gotta keep living. We done made it through Bush and everybody else. We can make it through him another term.”
As Lambert left the park that afternoon, she chased after her toddler through a grass field, barely keeping up.
“You win!” she said.
