After Donald Trump’s electoral victory, alarm bells went off among Democrats. Republicans were gaining ground among the Latino electorate, and the now-president appeared to be on the verge of winning the Latino vote.
Debates began, and California—a traditionally Democratic state—was in danger of changing color. That possibility raised concerns it could be replicated across the rest of the country.
Then something predictable happened. Trump declared his war on immigration, supposedly targeting criminals, but ultimately harming non-criminals—regardless of their immigration status.
Masked agents began patrolling cities across the country, and Latinos were clearly among the hardest hit.
Just last month, new polling data began to tell a different story. Trump is no longer as popular among Latino voters, and a political catastrophe may be imminent.
Throughout the president’s first few months in office, his favorability among Latinos has plummeted—especially among independents and women—according to a new poll conducted by Global Strategy Group and commissioned by Somos Votantes, a Democratic-leaning organization focused on Latino voters.
Among independents, Trump’s approval dropped from 43 percent in February to 29 percent in May. Overall, his approval among Latinos fell from 43 percent to 39 percent. The poll surveyed 800 Hispanic/Latino registered voters nationwide between May 8 and May 18 and has a margin of error of ±3.5 percent.
Latinos surveyed also expressed growing dissatisfaction with Trump’s handling of the economy. Only 38 percent held a positive view. Among independents, that figure dropped to 26 percent, and among women, it was just 30 percent.
“These numbers tell a pretty clear story: trust in Trump’s economic leadership is not only steadily, but quickly, eroding—which is a huge liability for the president,” said Somos Votantes president Melissa Morales, who noted that Trump’s prior gains among Latinos were largely due to his economic promises.
According to Pew, Trump won 48 percent of Latino voters in the 2024 presidential election—the highest percentage ever recorded for a Republican presidential nominee, and a 12-point improvement from his 2020 performance.
Latinos made up 10 percent of Trump’s coalition, up from 7 percent four years earlier. Latino men voted Republican for the first time, and Trump even improved his support among Latinas—long seen by Democratic leaders as a bulwark against their macho “Trumpista” relatives—by a margin of 13 points, an even greater swing than that of Latino men.
Instead of focusing on the “worst of the worst,” la migra has detained both citizens and noncitizens. An analysis of data obtained by the Deportation Data Project at UC Berkeley Law found that nearly 70 percent of those arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) between June 1 and June 10 had no criminal convictions.
