A new study could shed light on one reason President Donald Trump may have gained ground with minority voters, who previously supported Democrats, in the 2024 presidential race.
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Trump’s 2024 victory was in part due to his relative strength among Latino, Black and Asian and Pacific Islander voters who have drifted away from Democrats. The question about why these voters shifted rightward has perplexed some on the left, who are seeking to win them back in the 2026 midterms and beyond.
The new study, published this month in Psychological Science, offers one explanation about this phenomenon.
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Ethnic minorities were closer in their attitudes about “strong leaders” to right-leaning white Americans compared to left-leaning white Americans, according to the study. Trump has in the past been compared to a “strong leader,” defined by the study as leaders who are “tough, ironfisted, and viewed by supporters as dedicated to the pursuit of their goals.”
The study focused on minorities both in the U.S. and Europe—not on Trump specifically, though Krishnan Nair, a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who is an author of the study, told Newsweek it could have implications on his electoral strength with some voting groups.
The study found that levels of “generalized trust,” which is the level of trust a person has in others living around them, is a key factor in shaping leadership preferences. It noted that while there have been decades worth of studies on support for strong leaders among the right, those studies have mostly been made up of white participants.
“Minorities across ethnic and political backgrounds are generally closer to right-wing Whites than to left-wing Whites in their preference for strong leaders,” Nair said. “That’s important because Trump being this prototypical strong leader, we also see a minority shift toward Trump even as Trump’s rhetoric is viewed by a lot of people as being racially insensitive or offensive.”
Minorities may have lower levels of generalized trust if they are recent immigrants from countries with lower generalized trust or due to their social standing in the U.S, he said. Nair explained how this could translate to support for strong leadership.
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