NM Hispanics: Pre-New Deal.

[TDAS04]

I've read that the old-stock Hispanic population of of Northern New Mexico became heavily Democratic in the 1930s.  It's hard to find information about them before then.

It appears that they were mostly Republican.  In the elections of 1912-1924, the counties in Northern NM where these Hispanics have lived for a few centuries supported the Republican presidential nominee;  the more Anglo-Saxon counties of "Little Texas" in the Southeast voted for the Democratic candidate.

Why was this?  My only guess is that they were rivals with the mostly Democratic Texans.  It is interesting that NM appears to have been an unusual state politically at the time; it had mostly-Democratic WASPS and majority-Republican Catholic ethnics.  A reverse Massachusetts.

[Stranger in a strange land]

Were the NM Hispanics Unionists during the Civil War? If so, that would explain a lot. For decades virtually the only Republican areas in Texas were the German-settled Hill Country Counties, which had been Unionist strongholds during the Civil War.

[Mechaman]

Were the NM Hispanics Unionists during the Civil War? If so, that would explain a lot. For decades virtually the only Republican areas in Texas were the German-settled Hill Country Counties, which had been Unionist strongholds during the Civil War.

Which interestingly enough, were heavily Catholic.

If I had to guess it might have to do with simply being a disadvantaged minority in a state dominated by majority WASP politics.

[Mechaman]

I've read that the old-stock Hispanic population of of Northern New Mexico became heavily Democratic in the 1930s.  It's hard to find information about them before then.

It appears that they were mostly Republican.  In the elections of 1912-1924, the counties in Northern NM where these Hispanics have lived for a few centuries supported the Republican presidential nominee;  the more Anglo-Saxon counties of "Little Texas" in the Southeast voted for the Democratic candidate.

Why was this?  My only guess is that they were rivals with the mostly Democratic Texans.  It is interesting that NM appears to have been an unusual state politically at the time; it had mostly-Democratic WASPS and majority-Republican Catholic ethnics.  A reverse Massachusetts.

It was probably because the Hispanic Catholics had similar experiences with white westerners as white Catholics had with WASP New Englanders.  Manifest Destiny, after all, is reverse nativism (kicking people out of their own lands and taking it).