Hispanic voters who backed Trump in 2024 now disapprove, polls show

Cost of living tops immigration as Hispanic voter concern

A September New York Times/Siena University poll found more than 65% of Hispanic voters are displeased with Trump’s handling of his job and 78% said they would prefer to see the Democratic party in control of Congress, according to reporting by The Guardian. The poll results suggest potential trouble for Republicans in the November midterm elections among a constituency that helped deliver Trump’s 2024 victory.

The findings track with other recent surveys. A Fox News poll conducted in September found approximately 63% of Hispanic respondents plan to vote for the Democratic congressional candidate in their district. In an UnidosUS poll from April and May, 54% of Hispanic voters said they would vote for the Democratic House candidate, compared with 27% who said they would favor the Republican. Between October 2025 and May 2026, Hispanic voters’ favorability toward Democrats in Congress rose by three percentage points, while favorability toward Republicans in Congress rose by only one point, according to UnidosUS polling of 3,000 Hispanic voters.

Cost of living ranks as the leading concern for Hispanic voters, followed by immigration enforcement and deportation in U.S. cities, then broader economic concerns about wages, according to Clarissa Martinez De Castro, vice-president of the Latino Vote Initiative at UnidosUS.

“When we ask voters, ‘OK, what is shaping your opinion about the president?’ The cost of living was number one, number two was immigration enforcement and deportation in US cities, number three is back to the economy – wages,” Martinez De Castro said.

Inflation has remained stubborn at 3.4% over the past year, The Guardian reported, elevating grocery costs. The war with Iran has pushed average gas prices past $4 per gallon. Trump’s 2024 message of economic populism helped him get elected, but voters — including Republicans — have soured on his handling of the economy amid the high inflation and rising costs, according to the reporting.

The Trump administration’s second-term immigration policies have also drawn criticism from Hispanic voters. Federal agents have been deployed to Latino and Hispanic communities across the country, and some who have encountered immigration agents have accused the administration of racial profiling to target immigrants for deportation. Still, immigration is not the top issue for Latino voters — a misconception, The Guardian reported, that politicians frequently make. In UnidosUS’s poll, 17% of respondents said they wanted elected officials to prioritize increasing border security, and 13% said they supported deporting all undocumented immigrants regardless of how long they have been in the U.S.

Latino voters who backed Trump in 2024 belong to a larger cohort of swing voters with no durable party allegiance. They make up roughly 40% of the Hispanic electorate, according to Martinez De Castro, and are often misunderstood by politicians.

“You have 40% of voters here for whom, many of them say, they don’t see the difference between the parties in terms of who really is going to be better,” Martinez De Castro said. “That tells candidates: you have homework to do, and the clock is ticking.”

Mike Madrid, a campaign consultant, author and teacher who has studied Latino voting patterns for 35 years, said frustration with the consequences of administration policies is driving Latino voters away from Republicans.

“There’s no renewed affinity or love for the Democratic party. They’re just extremely upset and disillusioned and angry, frankly, with Donald Trump,” Madrid said. “So they’re gonna leave the Republicans for the exact same reasons that they left the Democrats two years ago.”

Madrid also criticized what he described as a history of flawed outreach to Latino voters by both parties.

“The political structure has done a massive disservice with fake polling, with organizations that were advocating an agenda, not facts and science … and politicians that were trying to benefit from that,” Madrid, who has consulted for both Republican and Democratic campaigns, said.

White House spokesperson Allison Schuster pushed back on the polling. “Hard-working Hispanic Americans are beginning to have some breaking room after four year of economic pain under the Democrats,” Schuster said, pointing to policies such as middle-class tax cuts, no tax on tips, overtime and Social Security and “defeating Biden’s inflation crisis.” Schuster said Trump was “honored to receive a record level of support from Hispanic Americans that helped fuel his landslide 2024 election victory” and that the president and Republicans in Congress would “continue fighting to make everyday life more affordable for working families.”

Madrid and Martinez De Castro cautioned that Hispanic voters’ apparent tilt toward Democratic candidates ahead of the November elections does not guarantee Democratic support in 2028.

“Latino voters themselves are changing, which is why the Latino vote has changed,” Madrid said. “And you can’t you can’t come up with a solution until you understand that.”