The more that Republicans can promote access to meaningful work and decent wages as an alternative to Democratic welfare policies, the more they’ll be able to win over voters like Pérez. Indeed, two exit polls suggested that Virginia’s governor-elect Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, had won the majority of that state’s Latino population. Later analysis cast doubt on the outcome, but in any case Democrats’ hold on this voting bloc might be loosening—a trend also suggested in New York City’s mayoral election, where Democratic victory margins among not only Latino but also Asian voters shrank from previous cycles.

Not only do immigrants tend to be proud Americans and extremely hard-working; immigrant communities also tend to be sympathetic to conservative social values. Take the abortion issue. Polling has long shown that Hispanics tend to be more pro-life than Americans as a whole; this has often been ascribed to their Catholic tendencies. But Hispanics are particularly opposed to abortion even among fellow Catholics. One study found that a slight majority (53 percent) of white Catholics believe that most or all abortions should be legal; among Hispanic Catholics, 52 percent believed abortion should be illegal in most or all instances.

A more culturally diverse America may also mean an America with stronger bonds between children and their parents. A 2014 AARP survey estimated that about 22 percent of the general population of adults between the ages of 45 and 55 are involved in caring for their elders; among Hispanics, this jumps up to 34 percent. Among Asians, the number is 42 percent.