President Trump’s approval rating with Hispanics cratered since the start of his second term – and a sizable share of Latinos who voted for him in 2024 now plan to vote against Republican candidates in the midterm elections.
Two years after nearly half of Hispanic voters backed Trump in the presidential election, his approval rating with the key voting bloc has fallen to a record low of 24%, according to a Reuters/Ipsos survey released last month.
What’s more, about a quarter (24%) of Hispanics who voted for Trump in the 2024 election indicated that they’re not voting for the GOP House candidates in their district come the midterm election, the Pew Research Center found.
About two-thirds of Hispanic Trump voters (65%) said they’re still voting for Republican congressional candidates in the midterms and 11% indicated they’re voting for the Democratic candidate in their House race.
The effects of Trump’s declining support among Hispanic voters could be most apparent on Election Night in districts that went for Trump in the 2024 elections, have large Latino populations and GOP incumbents on the ballot in House races.
Jaime Florez, the Republican National Committee’s Hispanic outreach and communications director, said candidates are being realistic with voters.
“What they have to emphasize is we might not be having the perfect country that President Trump wants to bring us, and they promised that he was going to bring us two years ago, but they still have two more years and take a look at what’s going on in states that are being governed by Democrats, take a look at New York, take a look at California, take a look at Illinois, and compare that to states like Florida or Texas,” Florez said.
“President Trump has not been able to accomplish all the things that he’s working on, but he’s working on them, and what are the proposals of Democrats?”
Here are four midterm House races to keep an eye on:
California’s 22nd Congressional District
Rep. David Valadao (R-Calif. ) is taking on Democrat Randy Villegas in the San Joaquin Valley district, which is nearly 75% Hispanic and went for Trump in 2024 by 6 percentage points.
Villegas, the son of Mexican immigrants, is seeking to become the first Hispanic elected to Congress from the district.
Valadao, who is Portuguese, is no stranger to tough elections, but his district is more Democrat-friendly this cycle due to redistricting.
In the June jungle-style primary, Valadao received 40.7% of the vote while Villegas garnered 32.4% and Democrat Jasmeet Bains netted 26.9%.
Colorado’s 8th Congressional District
Rep. Gabe Evans (R-Colo.) will face Democrat Manny Rutinel and Libertarian David Wood in the district north of Denver, which boasts the largest number of Hispanic residents of any congressional district in the Centennial State.
The Hispanic population is about 40% in the 8th District, which went for Trump in 2024 by only 2 percentage points.
Evans, who is the grandson of Mexican immigrants, has tried to separate himself from Trump’s deportation agenda, including by publishing an op-ed in a Spanish-language newspaper in October supporting an immigration reform bill with a pathway to legal status and writing a letter to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) last year expressing concerns about the arrests of migrants with no criminal record.
Rutinel, whose mother is from the Dominican Republic, has focused his campaign on lowering prices for the working class, while backtracking from some of his previous lefty positions, including support for single-payer healthcare and a ban on fracking.
Florida’s 27th Congressional District
Voters will decide between Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) and Democrat Eliott Rodriguez in the district that is nearly 75% Hispanic and went for Trump by a whopping 15 points in 2024.
Salazar, who is endorsed by Trump, cut a blistering ad in September arguing the president’s immigration enforcement efforts have “gone too far.”
In the 30-second spot, Salazar warned Trump that his Latino supporters “feel betrayed.”
“Be careful what your advisers are telling you about immigration policies,” the congresswoman stated.
Salazar, the daughter of Cuban refugees and a longtime journalist at Telemundo, is in a tough re-election battle against Rodriguez, who is also Cuban American and an ex-journalist.
The limited polling in the race shows both candidates are about even.
Texas’ 15th Congressional District
Rep. Monica De La Cruz (R-Texas) is up against Democrat Bobby Pulido in the district the stretches from the US-Mexico border up past San Antonio.
The district is more than 80% Hispanic and went for Trump in the 2024 election by 18 percentage points.
The 15th District congressional seat had historically been Democrat-held until De La Cruz flipped it in the 2022 midterms.
Pulido, a Tejano music star, has described himself as a “conservative Democrat” who supports a “tough but fair” immigration system.
Florez, the RNC Hispanic outreach and communications director, told The Post that he doesn’t believe Trump’s dip in support from Hispanics will cost the GOP in these races.
“We’ve been fighting very hard to have people understand that nothing is going to change if President Trump loses the support he has at the House and the Senate,” Florez said.
“They don’t have any solution for any of the problems that have caused that reduction in popularity,” he argued. “Which, by the way, we’re not sure that those polls are accurate.”
Florez added that he doesn’t think polling is “measuring the rejection that Hispanics have for socialism and communism … and those trends are becoming more and more common on Democrat candidates.”
