Latino voters moved away from President Donald Trump on Tuesday, from the Rio Grande Valley to Paterson, New Jersey, helping Democrats win seats Republicans had redrawn to hold and nearly toppling two in Miami. An NBC News exit poll showed 60 percent of Latino voters backing Democratic House candidates and 35 percent backing Republicans. Two years ago, Pew Research Center's study of validated voters found Trump winning 48 percent of Latino voters to 51 percent for former Vice President Kamala Harris.
"What we saw was a massive rebuke of Donald Trump and a rejection of the Republican Party that's been enabling him," Mike Madrid, Republican strategist who studies the Latino vote, told Newsweek. "Nothing here could be inferred as an affirmation of the Democratic Party," Madrid said. He compared the result to the last election, saying, "It's really no different than what happened two years ago when Latinos rejected the Democrats and moved towards Trump." His term for it is dealignment.
"They're moving, they're rejecting both parties and they're rejecting the parties that are failing to address their economic concerns," he said. Texas' 15th is one of the districts that moved furthest. Trump carried the redrawn seat by 18 points in 2024, and Tejano singer Bobby Pulido won about 62 percent of the vote Tuesday to unseat Republican Representative Monica De La Cruz.
The (AP) put the shift at 42 points. Republicans drew the new Texas map on the assumption that Trump's 2024 gains would last. Democratic Representatives Vicente Gonzalez and Henry Cuellar both won reelection anyway, with Gonzalez holding a seat Trump carried by 10 points.
Democrats also picked up the 23rd District, which Trump won by 15, and captured the San Antonio-area 35th, which the president carried by 10. The Texas Tribune found turnout in border counties rose 8 percent from 2022, the largest increase of any region in the state. Senator-elect James Talarico won nine border counties that Trump carried two years ago.
Exit polls had Trump winning about 55 percent of Hispanic Texan voters in 2024. On Tuesday, roughly six in 10 backed Talarico for Senate and about three in 10 backed Republican Ken Paxton, according to exit polls. Democrat Gina Hinojosa beat Republican Governor Greg Abbott 53 percent to 46 percent statewide.
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