Democrats gain ground among Hispanic voters disenchanted with Trump

President Trump’s gains with Hispanic voters helped catapult him to the White House in 2024, raising questions about whether the key voting bloc had left the Democratic coalition.

But less than two years later, Democrats appear to be making inroads with those voters, who are expressing dissatisfaction with Trump, the state of the economy and his immigration policies.

A string of recent polls show Hispanic voters who supported Trump in 2024 are being lured back to the Democratic Party, which could help it win both chambers of Congress in November.

A Hart Research/TelevisaUnivision poll out this week showed that Democrats hold a 23-point advantage among Latino voters in 17 competitive House districts, and 11 percent of self-proclaimed Trump voters said they will support a Democratic congressional candidate.

The move toward Democrats is playing into key races, too, according to the Cook Political Report.

In the Texas Senate race, for example, James Talarico (D) is beating Ken Paxton (R), 63 percent to 30 percent among likely Hispanic voters. In the Lone Star State’s gubernatorial race, Gina Hinojosa (D) is leading incumbent Gov. Greg Abbott (R), 60 percent to 33 percent. And Trump’s approval rating among Hispanic voters in the state is at 33 percent.

Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), who spent Thursday campaigning in South Texas alongside Democratic congressional candidates, said the polls make sense based on the conversations he’s having on the ground.

“The top line is economics. People feel very, very, very stressed,” Gallego told The Hill in an interview on Thursday. “When I say stressed, I’m not saying they feel unhappy. I mean, they’re stressed.”

“They are literally worried about making bills, making payments. They’re complaining about the cost of everything going up: insurance, food, car parts, like everything you can talk about,” he said.

Luis Miranda, who served as the director of Hispanic media in the Obama White House, said the shift to Democrats is something that began last year.

“As early as last summer, Latinos were already expressing regret among those who had voted for Trump in 2024,” Miranda said. “This poll reinforces that those positions are hardening and affecting Trump allies on the ballot this year.”

Still, he cautioned that Latinos are “not a monolith, and Democrats will have to work to engage and mobilize these voters in ways that resonate with their communities in their states and districts,” including on the top issue, affordability.

“It’s an opportunity; it’s not a given,” he warned.

The new polling for Democrats comes as some in the party are warning they could jeopardize their gains with Hispanic voters amid growing influence of democratic socialists.

Some Democratic strategists say the “socialism” label could complicate the party’s efforts to win back Latino voters, especially in places like Florida, where the term has long carried political baggage with parts of the Hispanic communities there.

“Socialism is a nonstarter in places like Florida, where there are big swaths of Hispanic voters,” one Democratic strategist in the state said. “The word in and of itself is toxic.”

The strategist pointed to Florida state Rep. Angie Nixon, the Democratic nominee for Senate, arguing that her membership in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) could hurt her with voters. Nixon joined the DSA earlier this year, but she has said she doesn’t agree with all of their positions.

Republicans, meanwhile, say the socialist label has given them an opening at a time when dissatisfaction with Trump on the economy has hurt them with Hispanic voters.

“They came to us because the economy was poor under [former President] Biden and people thought Trump was going to fix it and also that [former Vice President] Kamala Harris was not a great choice,” said one former Trump campaign aide. “It was a perfect storm.”

Now, the former aide said, winning back those Hispanic voters will mostly come down to the economy.

“If inflation were not so high right now, Hispanics would be in our camp,” the former aide said, adding that immigration is “not the poison pill” Democrats say it is.

But one thing is clear, the former aide added: “These are not voters who are locked into our coalition. And we may very well pay the price this election cycle.”

In the interview, Gallego — who was one of the few Democrats who performed well in the 2024 cycle partly because of his success with Hispanic voters — said Republicans “misread the Latino vote in 2024, as if they had just created a permanent coalition with Latino voters.”

“And they made the same mistake Democrats have done,” he said. “They just kind of took advantage of that voter. The Latino voter is fairly a swing voter. And they rented their vote to the Republican Party.”

In the lead-up to November, Gallego said, Democrats have to lean in on economic issues — particularly with Latino men.

“If we lean into …’This sucks. This economy sucks. We understand why you feel that way. We’re going to do everything we can to get out this,’ I think then you’ll be able to bring them back,” he said.

Looking ahead to 2028, Gallego said, Democrats will have to come up with economic plans in Congress that they’ll aim to pass in the next two years, “even if Donald Trump vetoes it.”