This election cycle, the political landscape in the United States has witnessed significant transformations, particularly among Hispanic and Native American communities. Traditionally associated with the Democratic Party, these groups have shown signs of shifting their allegiances toward the Republican Party.

Tuesday, November 5th, will go down in history as one of the world’s greatest political comebacks. After years of politicized investigations and the entire bureaucratic state coming after him, Donald Trump secured an electoral landslide and won back the White House.

By focusing on the kitchen table issues that matter to all Americans, regardless of their identity – inflation, illegal immigration, foreign affairs, public safety – Donald Trump was able to expand not only his electoral map but also his electorate.

Despite both Republicans and Democrats courting the Hispanic and Native American votes, exit polls from Tuesday night found that President Donald Trump received support from almost 65% of Native American voters and 45% of Hispanic voters.

However, these trends are not just unique to the American Southwest. In North Carolina, the once loyally blue Lumbee shifted 36 points to the right in 2020, giving Donald Trump critical votes necessary to win the state. In 2024, Donald Trump expanded his victory amongst tribal members, receiving 63% of the vote in Lumbee-heavy Robeson County.

When studying this trend and understanding the impact it will have on election outcomes in the future, it is important to look at why Native American and Latino voters shifted. On the issues, like many Americans, the traditional cultural values of both Hispanics and Native Americans simply do not align with the woke left.

At the core of both Hispanic and Native American cultures lies a deep respect for the family unit, traditional gender roles, respect for elders, tradition, God and the sacredness of life. These long-standing cultural values align better with the Republican Party.

Another key issue, particularly for tribes and Hispanic voters in New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada, is illegal immigration. While Democrats wrongly assumed Hispanic voters would align with their open-border immigration policies, Hispanics, just like all Americans, want safer communities, too. Native Americans witnessed the Biden-Harris administration roll out the red carpet and (x amount of funding) to non-citizens, while many of our own Native American populations don’t have access to running water or electricity.

President Trump’s straightforward immigration policy resonates with all Americans.

The concept of the American Dream is also a powerful motivator for many Hispanic and Native American voters. Native Americans on the reservation have experienced some of the highest rates of poverty, destruction and despair as a result of socialist policies – as well as many Hispanics who’ve left communist countries like Cuba and Venezuela. We have a natural distrust of big government socialist policies advanced by far-left Democrats – as many Americans should.

No amount of gaslighting from the Harris-Walz campaign could erase the tangible economic results delivered under Trump’s presidency. Native Americans and Hispanics, like all Americans, have hope and aspirations for a better future, rooted in the belief that anyone, regardless of their background, can succeed through hard work and determination. Trump’s policies emphasized this narrative and delivered opportunity and progress.

As a Native American and Hispanic woman from the heart of Indian country, Gallup, New Mexico – which is also in a Hispanic majority state, I have worked to bridge the gap between the Republican Party and Native and Hispanic communities. For the first time in recent memory, Donald Trump’s Republican Party made it their mission to earn the trust and support of these communities, and it paid off.

Though it was not enough to win in a state like New Mexico, Donald Trump’s outreach to our community put him within six points of winning, a five point improvement from 2020.

In the last week of his campaign, President Trump came to our state and spoke directly to our communities. New Mexico was never in play this cycle, but he seized the opportunity to make inroads and pushed the needle closer, improving his performances and appealing to a new group of mobilized voters.

Groundwork has been laid, a presence has been felt and a movement has begun. Flipping a reliably blue state takes time and with the Republican National Committee and Trump apparatus committed to improving Hispanic and Native American outreach in rural communities that were once reliably blue, we can begin to build a stronger bridge into these communities.

The potential for Hispanic and Native American communities to lean towards the Republican Party becomes increasingly plausible. Their traditional values, concerns over illegal immigration, economic aspirations, and the enduring hope of the American Dream create a complex interplay that influences their political choices.

These shifts have the potential to impact American electoral politics permanently and put states like New Mexico, Nevada and California in play for Republicans in the years to come. 

Elisa Martinez is both Hispanic and Native American. She is a registered tribal member of the Navajo Nation. She ran for US Senate in New Mexico in 2020. She is a former Trump surrogate (2020), Native Americans for Trump coalition advisory board member and former press secretary for the Republican National Hispanic Assembly.

President-elect Donald Trump is expected to soon appoint a Ukrainian peace envoy to lead negotiations on ending the war with Russia, multiple sources told Fox News Digital. 

‘You’re going to see a very senior special envoy, someone with a lot of credibility, who will be given a task to find a resolution, to get to a peace settlement,’ one of the sources said. 

‘You’re going to see that in short order.’ 

The job is not expected to be a salaried role – from 2017 to 2019, Kurt Volker had served as special representative to Ukrainian negotiations on a volunteer basis. 

Trump has been rolling out appointee names at lightning pace of those he wants to fill his Cabinet and advise him on top issues. 

He picked Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., to serve as his national security advisor and sources have told Fox News he’s settled on Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., to lead the State Department. 

Trump has designated Steven Witkoff to be his special envoy to the Middle East. 

Trump has long insisted he could negotiate an end to the war with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Few details have been given about how he would do this. 

A report last week by the Wall Street Journal suggested Vice President-elect Vance’s controversial suggestions from the campaign trail are now being pushed by multiple advisers close to the president-elect.

Some advisers are reportedly encouraging Trump to push Kyiv to agree to terms that would freeze the frontlines by creating an 800-mile-long demilitarized zone and allow Russia to keep the land it has illegally seized, which amounts to roughly 20% of Ukraine.

It has also been suggested that Kyiv should agree not to pursue NATO membership for 20 years, a stipulation that critics of this plan argue kowtows to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

A Washington Post report on Sunday also claimed Trump had spoken with Putin, where the president-elect told the Russian leader not to escalate the war. Trump’s transition team would not confirm or deny the call. 

Fox News’ Caitlin McFall contributed to this report. 

President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday predicted the GOP could win liberal states like California and New York in the next election — and mused about running a fourth time. 

‘I suspect I won’t be running again unless you do something else, unless you say he’s so good we’ve got to figure something out,’ he joked to a gathering of House Republicans ahead of their closed-door leadership elections in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday. 

‘It’s nice to win. It’s always nice to win. A lot of good friends in this room. So, you know, we had, like, historic kind of numbers, especially for the president,’ Trump said. ‘But the House did very well, and I think we’re responsible for helping you.’

Trump’s appearance came as lawmakers returned to Washington for a lame duck session before the next term. Republicans are poised to keep their narrow majority in the House, and have won control of the Senate, granting them far greater ease next term at getting conservative legislation to the president’s desk.

Trump went on: ‘We won, which is great because Republicans aren’t supposed to be winning the majority.’ 

‘We won it every way — all seven swing states by a lot … New Jersey is right, just a few points. It’s got them very worried because they said, well, next time if we go up even a fraction of what we went up, you’re going to win New York, you’re going to win new Jersey, you’re going to win places that weren’t winnable. California too.’ 

Former First Lady Melania Trump said she questions whether First Lady Jill Biden’s ‘concern was genuine’ following the first assassination attempt against President Trump in July, due to her rhetoric about her husband in the days leading up to the incident. 

Trump, in an interview with French publication ‘Paris Match’ last month, said that Jill Biden ‘took the initiative to contact me directly’ after ‘someone tried to murder my husband in Pennsylvania’ during his rally on July 13.

‘I do question, however, whether Jill’s concern was genuine as a few days prior she referred to my husband as ‘evil’ and a ‘liar,’’ Trump said. ‘It was obvious that the onslaught of rhetoric from Democrat leaders and the mainstream media was so deeply embedded in our nation’s consciousness it prompted an attempt to assassinate Donald.’ 

Mrs. Trump’s interview was conducted before President-elect Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election. 

President-elect Trump is in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday for meetings with House Republicans on Capitol Hill and will return to the White House for the first time since leaving in 2021 Wednesday for a meeting with President Biden. 

Mrs. Trump, however, will not attend the meeting at the White House. 

‘Her husband’s return to the Oval Office to commence the transition process is encouraging, and she wishes him great success,’ her spokesperson said. 

Meanwhile, in the interview, Mrs. Trump said that while she was ‘relieved to learn my husband was safe, it was evident that the forces behind this wicked behavior won’t come to an end.’ 

‘Simply put, they want Donald out.  They won’t stop. Has the concept of ‘respect’ become antiquated?  Can opposing sides prioritize decency, come together, and coexist?’ she questioned. ‘Doubtful, as the Democrat political engine peddles harsh words, vile names, and labels our nation’s 45th President ‘a threat to democracy.’’ 

She added: ‘People today are so desensitized they actually joke about killing a former U.S. President.’ 

Mrs. Trump said that ‘it is undeniable that this type of speech created a toxic political environment.’ 

‘This relentless vilification deepened the political divide in America, and now compromises those individuals who dare to stand-up for their own beliefs,’ she said. ‘We are dangerously close to the edge of a different type of societal change.  It is time to be introspective, rewire ourselves, and discover the root cause of this egoism.  It is incumbent upon every American to begin posing these questions in order to ensure the survival of our nation. We now live in a post-respect world.’ 

She added: ‘I guess nothing in politics is sacred anymore.’ 

President-elect Trump, after the second assassination attempt against him in September, in an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, also blamed Democrats’ rhetoric for the violence. 

‘Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at, when I am the one who is going to save the country, and they are the ones that are destroying the country — both from the inside and out,’ Trump said in September.

Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith is expected to resign before President-elect Trump is inaugurated in January, the New York Times reported, citing sources familiar with the matter. 

Smith is aiming to bring to an end his cases against Trump and step down before the new president takes office as a way to get ahead of the Republican’s promise to fire him ‘within two seconds.’ 

Trump has pointed to a Supreme Court immunity ruling from this summer that broadened the criteria for official presidential conduct ineligible for prosecution even after a president is no longer in office.

Smith has been evaluating how to wind down both the 2020 election interference case and the separate classified documents case before Trump takes office, Fox News reported last week. 

Longstanding Justice Department policy says sitting presidents cannot be prosecuted while in office.

Smith on Friday filed a motion to vacate all deadlines in the 2020 election interference case against Trump in Washington, D.C., a widely expected move, but one that stops short of dropping the case against him completely. He said Friday that his team plans to give an updated report on the official status of the case against Trump on Dec. 2. 

Smith is required under DOJ regulations to submit a report of his findings and an explanation of the charges the prosecutor considered and ultimately filed – even though neither case made it to trial. 

Under a crunched timeline, it is unclear if Attorney General Merrick Garland would make that report public before the end of President Biden’s term or defer to the incoming Trump administration, according to the Times. 

Sources close to the matter told the Times that Smith has no intention of dragging his feet, and has informed career prosecutors and FBI agents on his team not directly involved in preparing the report that they can plan their exits in the coming weeks. 

In Friday’s filing, Smith said he needed a month ‘to assess this unprecedented circumstance and determine the appropriate course going forward consistent with Department of Justice policy.’

The House Judiciary Committee is concerned that Smith and prosecutors involved in the investigations will ‘purge’ records to skirt oversight and is demanding they produce to Congress all documents related to the probes before the end of the month, Fox News Digital previously reported. 

Fox News’ Breanne Deppisch, Brooke Singman and the Associated Press contributed to this report.