Democrats Struggle to Regain Latino Support as Trump’s Influence Grows

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Democrats are finding it difficult to reverse the rightward shift among Latino voters, a trend that was evident in November’s election when former President Donald Trump made significant gains with the demographic that was once seen as a stronghold for the party.

 

While the majority of Latino voters cast their ballots for Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s support among them rose by approximately eight points between 2020 and 2024, according to AP VoteCast. The shift was even more pronounced among Latino men, who moved towards Trump by double digits, despite his controversial stance on immigration and deportation policies.

 

“The Biden campaign and then, by connection, the Kamala Harris campaign, had a lot of work to do with all of the groups, but I was surprised that so many Latino men were so disillusioned with Joe Biden and what happened in the last four years that they were willing to go to Donald Trump even with all of the crazy, xenophobic anti-immigrant rhetoric,” said Democratic political strategist Maria Cardona.

 

In 2016, when Trump won his first term, he secured just 28 percent of the Latino vote, according to the Pew Research Center. That number grew to around 35 percent in 2020 and surged to 43 percent in 2024, contributing to his re-election. The shift reflects a broader rightward movement across multiple states and demographic groups, demonstrating how Democrats have been gradually losing ground with a bloc that overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama over Mitt Romney in 2012 by a staggering 71 percent to 27 percent, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

 

Trump’s success among Latino voters was largely attributed to his economic messaging. “Trump did a fantastic job at messaging,” Cardona said. “A lot of it was misinformation, lies and conspiracy theories that, frankly, a lot of people believed. But at the end of the day, they believed that Trump was going to give them the economy that they had at the beginning of Trump’s [first] term.” Meanwhile, the impact of Trump’s immigration policies on Latino voters may have been overstated. Traditionally, it was believed that a candidate advocating for immigration policies detrimental to Latino communities would lose significant support. However, Melissa Michelson, a professor of political science at Menlo College, explained, “I think we’ve all now updated our understanding of how Latino voters make their vote choice decisions.”

 

The Trump campaign effectively linked immigration to economic concerns, claiming that immigrants were taking “Black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs” or that immigration was exacerbating the housing crisis. This narrative resonated with some Latino voters. “That likely led some Latino voters to buy into the idea that ‘maybe things would be a little bit better if we didn’t have as many immigrants around,’” said Gabriel Sanchez, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

 

Democrats, meanwhile, struggled to counter Trump’s economic messaging in a way that specifically addressed Latino concerns. “If Latino voters are saying election after election, ‘focus on the economy,’ … and Democrats really didn’t ever have that messaging especially directed towards Latinos specifically, I think that’s really been the backdrop where immigration permeated a bit back,” Sanchez said.

 

Another factor in Trump’s rising Latino support is that many Latinos do not necessarily identify with the immigrant communities he has targeted. “The idea being: If we can reduce immigration, then maybe Americans will see Latinos who are already here as less likely to be suspected of being here without documentation,” Michelson explained.

 

Maritza Miranda Saenz, a strategist and former executive director of Maricopa County Democrats in Arizona, expressed concern over Democrats’ failure to adequately address their slipping numbers with Latino voters. “I don’t think they’re concerned enough,” Saenz said. “Democrats just are not scared yet … but that should be the top of every single conversation.” In Arizona, one of the states with the highest percentage of Hispanic and Latino residents, Democrats have long hoped that the Latino voting bloc would turn out in larger numbers. “And in the meantime, they have ignored that voting bloc,” Saenz said.

 

Trump also gained support among Latina women, rising from 32 percent in 2020 to 39 percent in 2024, according to AP VoteCast. The shift among Latino men was even more dramatic, with support climbing 10 percentage points to 48 percent. However, some Democrats see an opportunity to reclaim support among Latino women, particularly through education policy. Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, believes that Trump’s actions regarding federal education programs could become a major political liability for him. “I know that the big fight will be education,”

 

Espaillat said. “If he messes with moms, he’s going to face a lot of trouble, because moms don’t take it. They go out and they fight for their kids. So when you see that happen, when he reaches out to cut programs like Title I, which is the kids that are schools that have a significant number of kids under the poverty level, Title II for English language learners, or Title III, more training for teachers, moms are going to get upset. I think moms are going to put him in his place.”

 

Democratic strategist Mike Madrid, co-founder of the Lincoln Project and author of The Latino Century: How America’s Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy, pointed out that Trump’s aggressive immigration policies could also backfire. Since returning to office, Trump’s administration has launched a wave of immigration enforcement actions, including ICE raids, and even released a controversial video appearing to mock deportees. “The risk of Latinos coming back to a more traditional voting pattern of supporting Democrats is very high if Republicans overplay their hand that way,” Madrid said.

 

Despite Latino voters prioritizing economic issues, Cardona emphasized that Trump’s policies are now having tangible consequences. “A lot of Latinos … are having buyer’s remorse,” she said. “When Democrats were trying to make the case to the Latinos who were leaning towards Trump during the election, we would bring up the mass deportation stuff. They didn’t believe that he would do that. Even though they had people in their family that were mixed status, they did not believe.”

 

Based on a report by The Hill 2025-02-25