Hispanic voters in South Texas and South Florida are showing signs of moving away from President Donald Trump and the Republican Party, just five weeks before the midterm elections. The two regions were key to Trump's gains with Latino voters in 2024, when he made major inroads in heavily Hispanic areas of both states. Now, Republican-held House seats in South Texas and South Florida are becoming more competitive, while the Texas U.S.
Senate race has also tightened. For Democrats, the shift has raised hopes of winning a statewide election in Texas for the first time since 1994. The Cook Political Report, widely considered the industry standard for nonpartisan race ratings, moved three Florida House races and three Texas House races toward Democrats, including Texas' 9th Congressional District, which had long been considered solidly Republican.
While the two electorates are different, political strategists who track Latino voters told Newsweek they are responding to many of the same concerns. A survey of Hispanic likely voters in Texas conducted for the Cook Political Report and TelevisaUnivision found Trump's job approval at 33 percent, two years after he carried Texas Hispanics by 10 percentage points. Republican Senator Ted Cruz won the group by 3 points in 2024.
Texas state Representative James Talarico, the Democratic Senate nominee, leads Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton 63 percent to 30 percent among Hispanic voters, including 73 percent of self-described independents. In the governor's race, Democratic state Representative Gina Hinojosa leads Republican Governor Greg Abbott 60 percent to 33 percent. Abbott won 40 percent of Hispanics in 2022.
Much of the movement comes from Trump voters. Eighteen percent of Texas Hispanics who backed him in 2024 disapprove of his performance, 19 percent support Talarico over Paxton and 22 percent do not back a Republican in a generic House matchup. Mike Madrid, a longtime Republican strategist and author of The Latino Century, said Washington misread what happened in 2024.
"People, I think, broadly are failing to understand that the Latino vote is the largest swing vote in America," Madrid told Newsweek. "Most people were thinking it was part of this permanent realignment. A lot of people who understand the Latino vote were saying it's not that at all." Immigration enforcement is also a drag.
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