During the election, Donald Trump's racist rhetoric activated the fears of people in areas with growing Latino populations

In the opening salvo of his presidential election campaign in June 2015, Donald Trump referred to Mexican immigrants as "racists" and "criminals". In new research Ben Newman, Sono Shah, and Loren Collingwood look at how Trump's racist rhetoric drew support during the election. Using data from survey polls taken during the campaign, they find that Trump's inflammatory comments activated the latent anti-immigrant sentiments of those who lived in areas which had experienced large increases in their Latino populations.