GOP losing Hispanic support is a massive self-own

Patricia Lopez, Tribune News Service

President Donald Trump’s support among Hispanics was always more fragile than he thought. Now his immigration and economic policies have all but obliterated the gains Republicans made with this group — gains they had started to count on for the midterms and beyond. A new Pew Research Center Poll shows that Trump’s disapproval rating among Hispanics has soared to 70%, with 51% signaling “very strong disapproval.” His job approval rating among this group has plummeted to 27%. Sure, you can shrug off a single poll — even one from Pew, which is about as reputable as they come. But when I asked Mike Madrid, the longtime GOP strategist and author of The Latino Century, what he made of it, he didn’t hedge. “It’s a historic collapse,” he told me — bluntly, emphatically, as if the political establishment hasn’t quite grasped the magnitude yet.

Should it continue, this could become one of the biggest self-owns in political history. Trump, after all, had succeeded where countless other Republicans had failed. His 2024 support from Hispanics was the highest of any Republican candidate in presidential history. Among naturalized Hispanic citizens, Trump notched 51% of the vote. That may seem contradictory, but Madrid said that for years, Democrats had operated on the assumption that all Hispanics opposed border enforcement. “There has been a rightward shift among every naturalised immigrant group in the country,” he told me.

During the campaign, Hispanics saw in Trump a strong leader who could return them to the pre-pandemic economy of his first term, with low interest rates, rising wages and the prospect of advancement. And, in a development Democrats weren’t counting on, younger Hispanics were more open to the GOP aspirational message of economic opportunity. Giancarlo Sopo, a Republican strategist who did Hispanic outreach for Trump’s 2020 campaign, said of Trump’s improved showing in 2024 that “Young Hispanics do not have the same muscle memory as their grandparents who voted for Democrats for 50 years.” Trump went on in 2024 to win 55% of Hispanic men, many of whom supported his hardline approach to immigration.

I wrote after Trump’s November victory that during the campaign, he had successfully drawn a line between Latinos — whether native born or in the US as legal immigrants — and immigrants here illegally. This allowed a number of Hispanics to believe that Trump’s threats of mass deportation couldn’t possibly include them. They didn’t think the government would come after naturalised citizens, much less green-card holders or those with temporary work permits. Trump was going to go after only undocumented immigrants, and then only “the worst of the worst,” the minority of troublemakers and criminals who gave immigrants a bad name. Reality hit like a slap in the face. Masked federal agents have indiscriminately seized workers from job sites and moms from school drop-off. Deportations have proceeded without due process. Civil liberties groups have sued ICE for using excessive force. Detention camps — where 70% of detainees have no criminal record — feature reportedly nightmarish conditions and have sprouted names like “Alligator Alcatraz” and “Lone Star Lockup.” All of this has shown Hispanics their faith was misplaced and their safety is in jeopardy.

The line Trump once drew between legal and illegal immigrants is, for many Latinos, gone — blurred by the president and his own appointees. Immigrants have been taken from courthouses where they’ve gone to seek legal status. Trump has retroactively canceled certain immigration programs, leaving legal immigrants subject to removal. The State Department has rescinded student visas and the Justice Department has said it will prioritise revoking US citizenship. The one issue powerful enough to overcome Hispanics’ reservations about these immigration policies is the economy. Here, too, Trump is failing. “This is a voter much more price-sensitive than many to a weakening economy,” Madrid said. “Politicians on both sides have failed to grasp that, but inflation is rising, wages are not keeping up and families are less worried about democratic institutions than whether each kid will get a full bowl of cereal.”

My Bloomberg Opinion colleague Mary Ellen Klas noted that Texas Republicans were counting on Hispanics’ loyalty to draw safe new districts for the 2026 midterms. Those seats aren’t the only ones that rely on Latino votes: House Republicans in California, Colorado, Arizona and New York are also exposed to softening Hispanic support. But Democrats can’t take for granted that Hispanics’ disgust with Trump’s policies will redound to their benefit. Hispanics and naturalised immigrants could simply decide not to vote at all.