Trump’s Gains With Latino Voters Are Evaporating
In June, the Pew Research Center’s analysis of validated voters in 2024 gave us the most definitive information on how Donald Trump won the presidency over Kamala Harris and all the underlying trends. And it left little doubt that the most important gains Trump made between his 2020 defeat and his 2024 win were not among young voters or Black voters or white working-class voters, but among Latino voters:
In 2020, Joe Biden won Hispanic voters by 25 percentage points, and Hispanic voters supported Hillary Clinton by an even wider margin in 2016. But Trump drew nearly even with Kamala Harris among Hispanic voters, losing among them by only 3 points.
This big shift among Latinos voters was decisive. And since Latinos make up the most rapidly growing segment of the electorate, a lot of the “realignment” talk surrounding Trump’s return to power stemmed from a theory that Latinos were undergoing a sort of delayed ideological sorting out that meant they might keep trending Republican and become a solid part of the GOP coalition. If true, that might have been disastrous for Democrats.
But a new study from Pew, long an authority on Latino voters, suggests otherwise. Trump’s appeal to Latinos is clearly sagging and could erode even further if he doesn’t change his policies on immigration and the economy:
70% of Latinos disapprove of the way Trump is handling his job as president.
65% disapprove of the administration’s approach to immigration.
61% say Trump’s economic policies have made economic conditions worse.
Even among the Latinos who voted for him in 2024, Trump’s job-approval rating has dropped from 93 percent at the beginning of the year to 81 percent right now. Fully 34 percent of these Trump voters say his second-term policies “have been harmful” to Latinos. And 2024 Harris voters seems to loathe him universally. Overall, Latino voters view what’s happening under Trump 2.0 with great trepidation:
Hispanics are pessimistic about their standing in America. About two-thirds (68%) say the situation of U.S. Hispanics today is worse than it was a year ago, while 9% say it’s better and 22% say it’s about the same.
This is the first time that most Hispanics say their situation has worsened in nearly two decades of Pew Research Center Hispanic surveys. When we asked this question in 2019, late during Trump’s first administration, 39% said the situation of U.S. Hispanics had worsened and in 2021, 26% said this.
When asked about how the Trump administration’s policies impact Hispanics overall, far more say they harm Hispanics than help them (78% vs. 10%).
That’s a significantly darker outlook than Latinos had in 2019, shortly before they gave Joe Biden 61 percent of their votes.
Since Latinos trended away from Biden in 2024 in no small part because of his economic policies, this finding could be especially important:
When asked about the overall U.S. economy, Hispanics’ views are mostly negative and unchanged from 2024. Some 78% say the economy is in only fair or poor shape, while 22% say it’s in excellent or good shape. In 2024, 76% gave the economy a negative rating.
Unsurprisingly, Trump’s mass-deportation policies are distinctly unpopular among one of ICE’s chief target populations, as it has become clear that they are not at all focused on “violent criminals”:
52% of Latino adults say they worry a lot or some that they, a family member or a close friend could be deported. This is up from 42% in March …
19% say they have recently changed their day-to-day activities because they think they’ll be asked to prove their legal status in the country.
11% say they now carry a document proving their U.S. citizenship or immigration status more often than they normally would.
Yes, concerns about Trump’s immigration policies vary among those with different countries of origin, but the overall picture remains negative:
Across Hispanic origin groups, about two-thirds of Central Americans and Mexicans disapprove of the administration’s approach to immigration. By comparison, 63% of South Americans, 58% of Puerto Ricans and 50% of Cubans say the same.
Puerto Ricans are by definition American citizens by birth, and Cuban Americans, long a Republican stronghold, are increasingly either American born or were naturalized some time ago. But Republican hopes for big Mexican American voting margins in states like Texas and Arizona may be in vain as long as Stephen Miller is in charge of deliberately cruel immigration policies.
Even if Trump manages to improve his current standing among Latinos, the idea that they are in the process of permanently trending Republican like the white Southerners of an earlier generation seems delusional. And if current trends persist, Latinos could contribute to a significant Democratic midterm victory in 2026.