RIO GRANDE CITY, Texas (AP) — Jorge Bazán’s family has lived on the U.S.-Mexico border for generations and has voted Democratic for as long as he can remember.

He broke with family tradition this year and voted for Donald Trump because he doesn’t trust the Democratic Party’s economic policies.

“I think they forgot the middle class,” said Bazán, who works for the utility company in Rio Grande City, seat of the most Hispanic county in the country. “People are suffering right now. Everything is very expensive.

The South Texas region — stretching from San Antonio to the Rio Grande Valley — has long been a Democratic stronghold. A shift toward Trump in 2020 has rattled Democrats in the predominantly Hispanic region, where for decades Republicans rarely bothered to field candidates in local elections. Few Democrats, however, expected the dramatic realignment that occurred Tuesday, when Trump flipped several counties along the border, including Hidalgo and Cameron, the two most populous counties in the Rio Grande Valley.

In Starr County, where Bazán lives, voters supported a Republican presidential candidate for the first time in a century. This rural, predominantly Hispanic and working-class county, with a median household income of $36,000, one of the lowest in the country, gave Trump a 16 percentage point margin of victory over Vice President Kamala Harris. About 2 million people live in far south Texas, among vast swathes of farmland and numerous state and federal agents patrolling the border.

Trump’s victories in the Rio Grande Valley made clear how working-class voters nationwide are shifting toward Republicans. That includes voters on the Texas border, where many Democrats have long argued that Trump’s promised immigration crackdowns would deter voters.

“I’ve always been a Democrat my whole life, but I decided to become a Republican with the current political landscape,” said Luis Meza, a 32-year-old voter in Starr County. “I thought becoming a Republican was the best choice, especially with the immigration issues and everything that’s going on.”

Meza said he was against Trump at first, but noticed too little change under President Joe Biden to justify voting for Harris.

Biden won Hidalgo County by less than half the margin that Hillary Clinton did in 2016. Since then, Republicans have invested millions of dollars to persuade Hispanic and working-class voters embittered by Democratic policies.

A similar scenario played out in the state’s three most competitive races in neighboring counties. Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz won a decisive victory in the 15th Congressional District. In the other two elections, veteran Democratic incumbents barely held on to their seats.

Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar narrowly escaped defeat to a political newcomer in the most competitive race of his two-decade career. Cuellar, whose district includes the city of Rio Grande, was indicted this year on bribery and other charges for allegedly accepting $600,000 from companies in Mexico and Azerbaijan. His support for abortion restrictions makes him one of the most conservative Democrats in the House.

Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez also narrowly escaped defeat to an opponent he comfortably defeated two years ago.

Nationally, Black and Latino voters appeared slightly less likely to support Harris than they were for Biden four years ago, according to AP VoteCast data. More than half of Hispanic voters supported Harris, but that figure is down slightly from the roughly 6 in 10 who supported Biden in 2020. Support for Trump among these groups appears to have increased slightly compared to 2020.

In McAllen, Texas, Jose Luis Borrego said inflation and the promise of tighter border restrictions pushed him to vote for a Republican presidential candidate for the first time.

“I wanted to see change and that’s why I voted for Trump. I voted red. I wouldn’t call myself a Republican,” Borrego, 37, said. He said he voted for Hillary Clinton and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders in previous elections.

Borrego’s entire family voted Trump.

“We just (made) that choice, because we didn’t have any other choice that we felt comfortable with,” he said.

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said he made visits to the area for months during his election campaign against Democratic U.S. Rep. Colin Allred. In his Election Day victory speech, Cruz said Hispanic voters were leaving the Democratic Party because of immigration.

“They are returning to conservative values ​​that they have never left. They understand something that liberal elites will never understand: there is nothing progressive about open borders,” Cruz said. “There is nothing Latino about letting criminals go free.”

Michael Mireles, director of civil engagement for the labor rights group La Unión del Pueblo Entero, believes Democrats have not sufficiently engaged Hispanic voters on the issues they care about.

“I think people on the Democratic side have been very slow to have these conversations with Latino homes and families.” Mireles said in Hidalgo County after Election Day.

“We can’t wait for a big election to have these conversations. At this point, it’s too late.

___ Lathan is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to cover under-reported issues.

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This story has been edited to correct the spelling of Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez’s first name and Jose Luis Borrego’s age.