{"id":14779,"date":"2025-11-08T17:40:24","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T17:40:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=14779"},"modified":"2025-11-08T17:40:24","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T17:40:24","slug":"trump-made-inroads-with-latino-voters-the-gop-is-losing-them-ahead-of-the-midterms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=14779","title":{"rendered":"Trump made inroads with Latino voters. The GOP is losing them ahead of the midterms"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By\u00a0Ana Ceballos<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Andrea Castillo<\/a>, LA Times<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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President Trump made historic gains with Latinos when he won reelection last year, boosting Republicans\u2019 confidence that their economic message was helping them make inroads with a group of voters who had long leaned toward Democrats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in this week\u2019s election, Democrats in key states were able to disrupt that rightward shift by gaining back Latino support, exit polls showed.<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In New Jersey and Virginia, the Democrats running for governor made gains in counties with large Latino populations, and overall won two-thirds of the Latino vote in their states, according to an NBC News poll<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And in California, a CNN exit poll<\/a> showed about 70% of Latinos voting in favor of Proposition 50, a Democratic redistricting initiative designed to counter Trump\u2019s plans to reshape congressional maps in an effort to keep GOP control of the House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The results mark the first concrete example at the ballot box of Latino voters turning away from the GOP \u2014 a shift foreshadowed by recent polling<\/u><\/a> as their concerns about the economy and immigration raids have grown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the trend continues, it could spell trouble for Republicans in next year\u2019s midterm elections, said Gary Segura, a professor of public policy, political science and Chicana\/o studies at UCLA. This could be especially true in California and Texas, where both parties are banking on Latino voters to help them pick up seats in the House, Segura said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the trend continues, it could spell trouble for Republicans in next year\u2019s midterm elections, said Gary Segura, a professor of public policy, political science and Chicana\/o studies at UCLA. This could be especially true in California and Texas, where both parties are banking on Latino voters to help them pick up seats in the House, Segura said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But polling shows<\/a> that a majority of Latino voters now disapprove of how Trump and the Republicans in control of Congress are handling the economy. Half of Latinos said they expected Trump\u2019s economic policies to leave them worse off a year from now in a Unidos poll<\/a> released last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In New Jersey, that sentiment was exemplified by voters like Rumaldo Gomez. He told MSNBC<\/u><\/a> he voted for Trump last year but this week went for for the Democratic candidate for governor, Rep. Mikie Sherrill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow, I look at Trump different,\u201d Gomez said. \u201cThe economy does not look good.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gomez added he is \u201cvery sad\u201d about immigration raids led by the Trump administration that have split up hardworking families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Latino voters fear being affected by immigration enforcement actions, polling suggests they are more concerned about cost of living, jobs and housing. The Unidos poll showed immigration ranking fifth on the list of concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In New Jersey and Virginia, Democrats\u2019 double-digit victories were built on promises to reduce the cost of living, while blaming Trump for their economic pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marcus Robinson, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, said Democrats \u201cexpanded margins and flipped key counties by earning back Latino voters who know Trump\u2019s economy leaves them behind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese results show that Latino communities want progress, not a return to chaos and broken promises,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Republicans see a different Trump issue<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

GOP strategist Matt Terrill, who was chief of staff for then-Sen. Marco Rubio\u2019s 2016 presidential campaign, said the election results are not a referendum on Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Latino voters swung left because Trump wasn\u2019t on the ballot, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year \u201cit wasn\u2019t Latino voters turning out for the Republican party, it was Latino voters turning out for President Trump,\u201d he said. \u201cLike him or not, he\u2019s able to fire up voters that the Republican party traditionally does not get.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Trump barred by the Constitution from running for a third term, Republicans are left to wonder if they can get the Latino vote back when he is not on the ballot. Terrill believes Republicans need to hammer on the issue of affordability as a top priority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mike Madrid, a \u201cnever Trump\u201d Republican and former political director of the California Republican Party, has a different theory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019re abandoning both parties,\u201d Madrid said of Latinos. \u201cThey abandoned the Republican party for the same reasons they abandoned the Democratic party in November: not addressing economic concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The economy has long been the top concern for Latinos, Madrid said, yet both parties continue to frame the Latino political agenda around immigration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLatinos aren\u2019t voting for Democrats or Republicans \u2014 they\u2019re voting against Democrats and against Republicans,\u201d Madrid said. \u201cIt\u2019s a very big difference. The partisans are all looking at us as if we\u2019re this peculiar exotic little creature.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The work ahead<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Democrat Abigail Spanberger was elected governor in Virginia in part because of big gains in Latino-heavy communities. One of the biggest gains was in Manassas Park, where more than 40% of residents are Latino. She won the city by 42 points,<\/a> doubling the Democrats\u2019 performance there in last year\u2019s election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shift toward Democrats happened because Latinos believed Trump when he promised to bring down high costs of living and that he would only go after violent criminals in immigration raids, said Democratic strategist Maria Cardona, who worked with Spanberger\u2019s campaign on outreach to Spanish-language media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, she argued, Trump betrayed them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cardona said Medicaid cuts under Trump\u2019s massive spending package this year, along with the reduction of supplemental nutrition assistance amid the government shutdown, have Latinos families panicking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat Republicans misguidedly and mistakenly thought was a realignment of Latino voters just turned out to be a blip,\u201d she said. \u201cLatinos should never be considered a base vote.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Political scientists caution that the election outcomes this week are not necessarily indicative of how races will play out a year from now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just one election, but certainly the seeds have been planted for strong Latino Democratic turnouts in 2026,\u201d said Brad Jones, a political science professor at UC Davis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, both parties need to explain how they expect to carry out their promises if elected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey can\u2019t sit on their laurels and say, \u2018well surely the Latinos are coming back because the economy is bad and immigration enforcement is bad,\u2019\u201d Jones said. \u201cThe job of the Democratic party is now to reach out to Latino voters in ways that are more than just symbolic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ana Ceballos and Andrea Castillo, LA Times President Trump made historic gains with Latinos when he won reelection last year, boosting Republicans’ confidence that their economic message was helping them make inroads with a group of voters […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14782,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,70],"tags":[83,80,81,82],"class_list":["post-14779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-slider","category-latino-vote","tag-california","tag-immigration","tag-latino-vote","tag-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14779"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14783,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14779\/revisions\/14783"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}