Latinos are now America’s most important swing voters
By JENNIFER MEDINA and RUTH IGIELNIK
In the 1990s, politicians fought for the support of soccer moms. In the 2010s, they competed for votes from white working-class voters. Now it is clear: Latinos are the most important swing voters of the 2020s.
Democrats have made gains with Latinos over the past two years, winning back trust with a crucial group of voters who helped fuel President Donald Trump’s return to the White House in 2024. Latino voters now favor Democrats over Republicans by 30 percentage points, according to the latest New York Times/Siena poll.
The shift is a striking reversal after Trump made significant inroads with Latinos, creating the foundation of a multiracial coalition that many believed could signal a long-term political realignment.
But that swing now appears limited and potentially fleeting.
While Democrats have not yet reached the level of support among Hispanic voters they had a decade ago, they have made important gains that could help them win control of Congress.
Hispanic voters make up at least 20% of registered voters in nearly two dozen highly competitive House races in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Pennsylvania and Texas, as well as other states. Latino voters could also prove decisive in several Senate races, including in Texas, where Republicans made historic gains in the past two elections. In Iowa and Kansas, traditionally Republican states where Democrats now see a chance to flip Senate seats, Hispanic voters could also play a critical role.
Latino voters have repeatedly shown in polls that neither party has earned their steadfast loyalty.
In the Times/Siena poll, 42% said they were dissatisfied with both parties, and 45% said they did not see a great deal of difference between the two.
Camilo Cruz, 19, an independent, said he did not trust either political party to improve conditions across the country. “It’s clear that they’re not actually trying to help with things,” he said. “They’re doing the opposite.”
Cruz, a student in Fort Myers, Florida, works two jobs to make ends meet. “It really doesn’t feel like either party has the best interest of the people in mind,” he said.
For the past two decades, Democrats have had an advantage with Hispanic voters. And many in the party had taken for granted that the growth of the Latino electorate would inevitably hurt Republicans. But in recent years, Democrats’ lead with the group shrank considerably.
In 2024, Trump had the support of 44% of Hispanic voters, according to the Times Voter Trends report, a marked increase from 2016, when 28% supported him.
In the latest survey, that support shrank back down to 31%.
Republicans gerrymandered several congressional districts in Texas and Florida on the presumption that they would maintain their edge among Hispanic voters. But recent polls suggest the reversal in Latino support could lead to Republican losses in congressional districts Trump won by double digits.
Sixty-one percent of Hispanic voters now say they are supporting Democrats in the midterms — an improvement, though short of the 68% that Democrats won in 2016.
The survey suggests Democrats are peeling off a small but significant share of Trump’s 2024 supporters, with 11% of Hispanic Trump voters saying they now plan to support Democrats.
By many measures, Trump drove both the rise and the fall of Republican support from Hispanic voters. A poll from Equis Research, which focuses on Hispanic voters, found that Trump’s approval rating had reached a new low among those voters.
“I liked Trump because he was going to make the economy better,” said Janet Fuentes, 34, a political independent living in Chicago who said she voted for Trump in 2024. “But prices keep going up.”
Much of Democrats’ gains among Latinos have been concentrated among younger voters and people without a college degree — two groups that swung hard toward Trump just two years ago.
Across every issue polled, Democrats now hold a wide advantage with Hispanic voters, illustrating how Democrats have regained their trust.
The cost of living is the biggest concern for Latino voters, and it is the issue where Democrats hold their widest advantage. By a nearly 30-point margin, more Hispanic voters say they trust Democrats to handle the economy — a striking reversal from two years ago, when Trump held a slim advantage on the issue.
And there are clear signs of the political impact of Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement: Nearly 20% of Hispanic voters now say immigration is a top concern, up from 6% last month.
While Hispanic voters were divided on which party to trust on immigration in 2024, they now give Democrats a 27-point lead on the issue.
“The very inhumane way our current administration goes about immigration enforcement is terrible,” said Victor Torres, 42, an engineer living in Houston. “People are being treated like hardened criminals, when they hadn’t done anything actually wrong while they’re here.”
Torres, a Democrat, said that immigration was the main issue driving his vote this year and that he trusted Democrats more to tackle it.
A little over one-quarter of Latino voters said they knew someone who was deported or detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the past two years, according to an NBC News/Telemundo survey. The polling suggests this may have implications for voter turnout. Some 17 % of Hispanic voters said they or someone close to them were considering not voting in person this year over concerns about ICE.
Still, Latinos are more enthusiastic than white, Black or Asian American voters heading into the midterm elections, according to the Times/Siena poll. Some 30% of Latino voters described their feelings as excited, happy or hopeful.
