The Texas primary elections took place on Tuesday, kicking off the 2026 midterm election season and giving us an early look at how national policies will influence local and statewide races.
At the center of it all in the Lone Star State were the always-enigmatic Latinx voters — whose voting patterns have long flummoxed pollsters.
The general consensus was that the ever-growing electorate was shifting to the right. The 2024 general election was viewed as a turning point: former Vice President Kamala Harris barely won the Latinx vote.
Donald Trump, meanwhile made historic gains, nabbing 48% of the Latinx vote, the highest share by any Republican presidential candidate. Additionally, Trump made double-digit gains with Latinx men under the age of 50.
You’re reading Latinx Files
Fidel Martinez delves into the latest stories that capture the multitudes within the American Latinx community.
By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Service and our Privacy Policy.
Tuesday night’s elections further showed the swaying power that Latinx voters can have.
In the most scrutinized race of the night, state representative James Talarico and U.S. congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (D-Dallas) squared off for the Democratic nomination in Texas’ U.S. Senate race.
Talarico, who has served in the Texas House of Representatives since 2018, walked away with the nomination and did so largely with the help of Latinx voters.
He performed particularly well in predominantly Latinx counties, a New York Times analysis revealed. In these municipalities, Talarico won 60% of the vote compared with Crockett’s 38%. He fared significantly worse in predominantly Black counties, garnering 37% of votes while Crockett received 61%. White counties were more split with Talarico getting 56% of the votes and Crockett grabbing 45%.
During the 2024 general elections, a majority of border counties — 14 of the 18 municipalities within 20 miles of the southern frontier — voted for Trump. In some of those same counties, Talarico was able to nab double-digit victories over Crockett.
Talarico’s profile may have been boosted in those regions in part thanks to his political association with musician-turned-politician Bobby Pulido — who secured the Democratic nomination for Texas’ 15th Congressional District on Tuesday night. The two formed an alliance despite Pulido proving to be more in the ideological center than Talarico.
(Surely the “Desvelado” singer and son of Tejanx legend Roberto Pulido would recoil at the name of this newsletter — Pulido recently pulled a Ruben Gallego in a CNN interview and intimated that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) was a coastal elitist for using it.)
The 36-year-old politician’s success with the Latinx voting bloc was more than incidental, a senior advisor to the Talarico campaign, Chuck Rocha, told the Wall Street Journal.
Additionally, Talarico was able to merge his populist economics with his compassionate, Christian nationalism-rejecting view of Christianity into a message that resonated with Latinx voters, who still hold strong ties to religion. According to the Pew Research Center, nearly two-thirds of Latinx people in the U.S. identify as Chrisitians, with most being Catholic.
“Latinos are an aspirational people, and they want to aspire. And they are also religious people, and they’re … for economic populism,” Rocha said. “They didn’t know James four months ago, we had to go introduce him, tell them who he was, and they liked what they saw.”
Talarico also made a concerted effort to campaign in Latinx-heavy areas, and courted the help of Latinx political TikToker Carlos Eduardo Espina — he has over 14 million followers on the video-sharing app — on the campaign trail.
Turnout for the Texas primary was exceptional, with 4.5 million Texans coming out to vote — 2.3 million ballots were cast in Democratic primaries and 2.2 million were cast in Republican races. This was by far the best primary voter presence this decade, surpassing even the 2020 primary elections.
Despite the great turnout, Tuesday’s votes accounted for only roughly 25% of all 18.7 million registered voters in Texas.
It should also be noted that the total number of voters fell well short of the more than 11 million people who voted in the 2024 general election. So there’s still a lot of unpredictability out there in the Texas electorate.
These election results come amid recent polling showing that Latinx voters are souring on Trump’s policies.
A Tuesday CBS News poll found that 65% of Latinx voters disapprove of Trump’s current deportation program. Only 30% Republican Latinx people said they had a favorable view of their political party. Additionally, 75% of all Latinx voters surveyed felt that the Trump administration was not focusing enough on lowering prices, the struggling economy or inflation.
But it’s not just polls that point to Latinx voters’ about-face on Trump’s policies — it’s actual election results, with Texas simply being the latest example of this trend.
Last year, California Latinx voters helped pass Proposition 50, which allowed Democrats to redraw the state’s congressional map in their favor — a move that directly countered a successful effort by Texas Republicans to do the same.
The Latinx population on the East Coast helped Democratic gubernatorial candidates Abigail Spanberger of Virginia and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey win their races in 2025, with two-thirds of the Latinx electorate voting for the politicians.
These election results have proved that more and more, Latinx people might be the last true swing voters.
Cuban Fuel Crisis 
On Wednesday, millions of Cubans were left without power.
Blackouts, which affected two-thirds of the island, including the capital city of Havana, were caused by an unexpected shutdown at one of the nation’s largest power plants, the BBC reported.
The island nation has been plagued by power outages over the last two years that have been caused by mechanical failures, damage from severe storms and fuel shortages.
The U.S. has further exacerbated Cuba’s energy crisis by cutting off all shipments of Venezuelan oil to Cuba in recent months. Since the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the Trump administration has controlled the South American country’s oil reserves. Trump has also threatened to impose tariffs on countries that send oil to the island.
In a Thursday interview with Politico, President Trump said that “Cuba is going to fall.”
“We cut off all oil, all money, or we cut off everything coming in from Venezuela, which was the sole source. And they want to make a deal,” Trump said.
In the same interview he took credit for the island’s energy issues.
“Well, it’s because of my intervention, intervention that is happening,” he said. “Obviously, otherwise they wouldn’t have this problem.”
Last week, Trump threw out the idea that the U.S. might “end up having a friendly takeover of Cuba,” though he did not fully elaborate on what he meant. He also noted that Secretary of State Marco Rubio was having conversations with Cuban leadership at a “very high level.”
The fuel blockade has deeply affected the Cuban economy and brought to a halt the country’s bustling tourism market. In February, Canadian and Russian air carriers paused trips to Cuba due to the country’s jet fuel reserves running dry.
Just this week, Air France announced it was suspending its services to Cuba later this month until mid-June due to the fuel shortage.
(Jackie Rivera / For The Times; Martina Ibáñez-Baldor / Los Angeles Times)
Stories we read this week that we think you should read
Unless otherwise noted, stories below were published by the Los Angeles Times.
Politics and immigrationArts, culture and entertainmentSouthern CaliforniaThe AmericasHegseth urges Latin American allies to go on offense against drug cartels (AP)Venezuela’s president vows mining reform amid visit from U.S. Cabinet member (Al Jazeera) World Cup playoff tickets on sale for less than $17 in Mexico (ESPN)Ecuador sinks ‘narco sub’ as nation joins forces with U.S. to target organized crime (CBS News)Brazilian Electoral Court approves restrictions on AI use in 2026 elections (Agência Brasil)