One in five Latino Trump voters in Texas would not repeat vote if given redo, poll finds

One in five Latino Texans who voted for President Donald Trump in 2024 would not support him again if given a redo, according to a new poll released Wednesday.

In a survey of 500 registered Latino voters, the Latino civil rights organization UnidosUS found that two-thirds disapprove of Trump’s job performance, the same share that said they did not feel Trump and congressional Republicans were “focusing enough on improving the economy for people like you.” Nearly half of voters cited cost of living and inflation as a top issue shaping their view of Trump — more than any other issue, with immigration enforcement in cities also ranking high in the list.

“The economic priorities dominate,” said Clarissa Martínez De Castro, vice president of the group’s Latino Vote Initiative. “Some people call it ‘buyer’s remorse,’ other people ‘do over.’”

The poll is the latest to cast doubt on the durability of Latino support for Trump and the Republican Party in a state he won by a wide margin two years ago, in large part due to Latino voters who swung to the right. Trump captured an estimated 55% of the voter bloc, which set a new high-water mark for Texas Republicans who had spent years losing Hispanic voters by double digits.

Democrats have found hope they might win a statewide election for the first time since 1994 thanks to other surveys that have also measured Latino voters’ eroding support for the GOP. Additionally, a Democratic union machinist rode a surge in Latino support to flip a Texas Senate seat in a January special election for a district that Trump carried by more than 17 points two years ago.

Pollsters conducted the UnidosUS survey between April 27 and May 14 over the phone, text invites and online panels in English and Spanish, depending on the participant’s preference. Roughly 40% of the state’s population is Hispanic.

Of the 500 voters surveyed, 300 live in one of five of the state’s top battleground congressional districts — the 15th and 23rd Districts, which Democrats hope to flip from GOP control, and the Democratic-controlled 28th, 34th and 35th Districts, which Republicans are targeting after redrawing their boundaries to make it easier for a GOP candidate to win.

In those districts, a slight majority of respondents said they planned to vote for the Democratic candidate for Congress, while 27% said they’d support a Republican and the rest were undecided, according to the poll. U.S. Senate Democratic nominee James Talarico led his recently cemented GOP opponent, Attorney General Ken Paxton, by a more than 2-to-1 margin, as did Democratic gubernatorial nominee Gina Hinojosa over Gov. Greg Abbott.

Still, De Castro said Democrats should not “rest on their laurels” just yet.

“The reality is that Democrats are still underperforming the levels of support that they would need from Latinos to be successful,” she said.