WASHINGTON — For generations, South Texas was a Democratic stronghold, but the region’s politics have been changing. President Donald Trump made inroads with Hispanic voters there and across the country in the last presidential election. But now, two years later, it appears this large and increasingly influential voting bloc is again up for grabs.
Trump is serving a second term, in part, because of the electoral gains he made with Hispanic voters in Texas and across the country.
Back in 2016, the political map in South Texas looked like what it did for decades, heavily Democratic. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton beat Trump in Zapata County by 33 percentage points. But in 2020, the county flipped, supporting Trump by more than 5 percentage points over former President Joe Biden. By 2024, Trump edged out Vice President Kamala Harris in all the Hispanic-majority counties along the southern border.
“Many voters, at the end of the day, especially in presidential elections, are making decisions around bread and butter issues around economics, and I think a strong message on that has ultimately, over the course of time, resonated,” said Alvaro Corral, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. “I think that many voters in 2024 were, of course, pointing to the sort of pre-COVID Trump economy as something that they wanted to return to, right, lower unemployment, lower inflation, especially.”
Entering the home stretch of the 2026 election, with control of Congress hanging in the balance, the question now is whether 2024 represents a temporary departure from traditional voting patterns or a lasting realignment of Hispanic voters.
“What we’re seeing recently is that swing element that used to be there before coming back even more strongly,” Clarissa Martinez, vice president of the Latino Vote Initiative at UnidosUS, told Spectrum News.
A UnidosUS poll found 67% of registered Hispanic voters disapprove of the job Trump is doing and that about 20% of Hispanic voters in Texas who backed him for president in 2024 say they would not repeat that vote. Nationally, the number is 25%.
“People are tired of working hard as hell just to survive, and that the ability to thrive keeps getting further and further away, so that economic discontent is going to be a big driver in this election,” Martinez said. “It help President Trump increase support with every demographic, including Latinos, but right now is also one thing that will come back to haunt not just the president, but members of his party that are running, unless they are able to talk about how they’re going to solve some of these issues.”
Some analysts said the demographic changes among voters add another dynamic.
According to the Pew Research Center, since the 2022 midterms, the number of U.S. eligible voters has increased by 8.4 million to around 250 million. More than half of this growth came from Hispanic people, whose numbers increased to 39 million, an increase of more than 5 million people. The Hispanic electorate’s growth comes in part from children coming of age and adults becoming naturalized citizens.
“A lot of these new voters don’t yet have a solid affiliation with one party or the other, which again presents an opportunity and a challenge. As long as candidates are doing what candidates must do when they want to win support from a voter, the candidate matters, the issues matter, and meaningful outreach is essential,” Martinez said.
The 2026 midterms could show if the cost of living, health care and housing, as well as the administration’s immigration enforcement have affected Trump’s support from the Hispanic voting bloc.
Source: spectrumlocalnews.com
