If the Democratic Party is to regain control of Congress or win back the White House, it will need the support of women and minorities. Almost 7 out of 10 women who are registered to vote disapprove of Donald Trump’s performance in office. The black vote will surely favor the Democratic Party as well. Only 10 percent of black voters support Trump. Then, there is the Hispanic vote. It would seem reasonable to assume that after three uninterrupted years of demonizing, ostracizing, and persecuting the country’s Hispanic immigrants, Trump and his nativist enablers would have hell to pay with Latinos at the ballot box, come November and beyond. Trouble is, they might not. Hispanic voters have become a maddening puzzle for the Democratic Party.

2016 was supposed to be the year America’s great demographic “sleeping giant” would finally awake, shaken out of its slumber by Trump’s rhetoric. Some predicted a massive “We have arrived” moment that would include a surge in voter registration and a dramatic increase in turnout at the polls. A “Latino wave,” an overoptimistic colleague told me, would come ashore and prove that Hispanic voters truly held the key to the White House.