WASHINGTON — Brian Leija, a 31-year-old small-business owner from Belton, Texas, was not surprised that a growing number of Latino men of his generation voted for Donald Trump for president this year. Leija had voted for the Republican in 2016 and 2020.

Leija’s rationale was simple: He said he has benefited from Trump’s economic policies, especially tax cuts.

“I am a blue-collar worker,” Leija said. “So, tax breaks for small businesses are ideal for what I do.”

For DaSean Gallishaw, a consultant in Fairfax, Virginia, a vote for Trump was rooted in what he saw as Democrats’ rhetoric not matching their actions. “It’s been a very long time since the Democrats ever really kept their promises to what they’re going to do for the minority communities,” he said.

Gallishaw, 25, who is Black, also voted for Trump twice before. This year, he said, he thought the former president’s “minority community outreach really showed up.”

Trump gained a larger share of Black and Latino voters than he did in 2020, when he lost to Democrat Joe Biden, and most notably among men under age 45, according to AP VoteCast, a nationwide survey of more than 120,000 voters.

Even as Democrat Kamala Harris won majorities of Black and Latino voters, it wasn’t enough to give the vice president the White House, because of the gains Trump made.

Voters overall cited the economy and jobs as the most important issue the country faced. That was true for Black and Hispanic voters as well.

About 3 in 10 Black men under age 45 went for Trump, roughly double the share he got in 2020. Young Latinos, particularly young Latino men, also were more open to Trump than in 2020. Roughly half of young Latino men voted for Harris, compared with about 6 in 10 who went for Biden.

Juan Proano, CEO of LULAC, the nation’s largest and oldest civil rights organization for Hispanic Americans, said the election results make it clear that Trump’s messaging on the economy resonated with Latinos.

“I think it’s important to say that Latinos have a significant impact in deciding who the next president was going to be and reelected Donald Trump,” Proano said. “(Latino) men certainly responded to the populist message of the president and focused primarily on economic issues, inflation, wages and even support of immigration reform.”

The Rev. Derrick Harkins, a minister who has served Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York, has overseen outreach to Black American religious communities for more than a decade. He said that Trump’s hypermasculine appeal worked to win over some younger men of color.

“I think that Trump with this bogus machismo has been effective amongst the young men, Black, white, Hispanic,” Harkins said. “And I think unfortunately, even if it’s a very small percentage, you know, when you’re talking about an election like we just had it can be very impactful.”

While about 4 in 10 young voters under 45 across racial and ethnic groups identified the economy as the top issue facing the country, older white and Latino voters were likely to also cite immigration, with about one-quarter of each saying that was the top issue.

A clear majority of young Black voters described the economy as “not so good” or “poor,” compared with about half of older Black voters.