Call it the Taco Tuesday warning. While the White House attempted damage control over Jill Biden’s remarks in San Antonio, Republicans have gone “on offense” in the Rio Grande Valley. A Politico analysis alerts Democrats that the GOP has made big gains in engaging Hispanic voters in the past couple of years … and it’s not by talking tacos.

That effort is about to pay off in the midterms:

Republicans are looking to Hidalgo County along the Mexican border in South Texas to prove their gains among Latino voters aren’t a mirage.

The Rio Grande Valley county that includes the city of McAllen is ground zero for clashes over cultural issues and big campaign spending. The GOP is looking to cement its inroads into what was a deep blue stronghold while Democrats want to shore up one of their few reliable pockets of votes in the Lone Star State. …

Latinos, who make up 93 percent of the population in Hidalgo, are increasingly voting according to their socially conservative beliefs, according to local GOP and Democratic leaders. Republicans in Hidalgo are appealing to Latino voters with a message that is anti-abortion, pro-church, pro-work and pro-family. They’re also criticizing Democrats’ handling of the border and immigration issues. The Republican National Committee has even opened a Hispanic community center in the county that hosts activities such as movies and religious services.

Mayra Flores already stunned Democrats with a surprise win in the RGV last month. Democrats in southern Texas erupted in frustration afterward over the impact that Joe Biden’s border crisis and increasingly radical progressive messaging has had on their constituents. As the Democratic Party has grown more obsessed with critical race theory ideology and elitist language constructs, the more they have lost touch with middle-class Hispanics whose values have suddenly become unwelcome among Democrats, or at the very least ignored.

Some of that may be a loss of support for Biden alone, but the election results in the RGV suggest more of a realignment. Politico notes that McAllen just elected its first Republican mayor in 25 years, with Javier Villalobos’ win back when Biden still remained only marginally unpopular. Nationwide, the exodus has been remarkable and has accelerated. The latest NYT/Siena poll adds yet another data set to the trend:

President Joe Biden’s popularity is tanking among Hispanic voters, according to a new poll from the New York Times/Siena College.

Only 32% strongly or somewhat approved of Biden’s presidency, while over 60% strongly or somewhat disapproved in the Monday poll, which surveyed 849 registered voters between July 5-7 and had a margin of error of 4.1%. In a rematch between Biden and former President Donald Trump, 42% said they would support Biden for reelection, compared to the 39% who said they would vote for Trump.

Biden’s support from Latinos and Hispanics has fallen significantly from the 60% who voted for him in 2020. Fifty-four percent of Hispanic respondents who disapproved of Biden said Biden’s poor performance as president is the reason they would choose to back a different candidate, which was the highest percentage of any demographic.

Why? For one thing, Democrats’ attempt to create a “Latinx” label for Hispanic voters has been laughably inept and outright insulting. The Academia clique in progressive leadership has pushed this for years to no avail. No one in the Democratic Party appears to have noticed that failure, though, while it adds up to another failure to connect with the voters Democrats want to woo.

That might be a much bigger problem than Jill Biden’s “breakfast tacos” line yesterday, but it’s the same issue. How clueless do you have to be to use Latinx among a population where only 2% of the population embraces it? As clueless as you have to be to prepare a speech in which you celebrate the taco as an example of Hispanic contribution to our national diversity.

Amidst their Taco Tuesday celebrations, the White House officially apologized for Jill Biden’s remarks:

The First Lady apologizes that her words conveyed anything but pure admiration and love for the Latino community.

— Michael LaRosa (@MichaelLaRosa46) July 12, 2022

Democrats have lost touch with Hispanic voters as that bloc has followed the traditional immigrant arc of economic success and political diversity as it moved into the middle class. Republicans may not be great at getting on the ground and engaging at the granular level with diverse communities, as I wrote in my book Going Red, but Democrats have forgotten how to do it at all. And they’re about to pay a generational price for it in the midterms.