{"id":39472,"date":"2025-11-07T10:45:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T10:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/39472\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T10:45:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T10:45:08","slug":"latinos-swung-left-this-week-thats-trouble-for-the-gops-2026-texas-redistricting-gambit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/39472\/","title":{"rendered":"Latinos Swung Left This Week. That\u2019s Trouble for the GOP\u2019s 2026 Texas Redistricting Gambit"},"content":{"rendered":"

The surprise of the 2024 elections was Donald Trump\u2019s gains with Latino voters despite his anti-immigrant fearmongering.\u00a0The entirely predictable development of the 2025 elections is\u00a0that\u00a0those gains are slipping away.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nate Cohn of\u00a0The New York Times\u00a0noted that \u201cthe exit polls in New Jersey found that [Democratic gubernatorial nominee Mikie] Sherrill won a whopping 18 percent of Mr. Trump\u2019s Hispanic support in the state.\u201d Furthermore,\u00a0Sherrill\u00a0\u201calso seemed to\u00a0benefit\u00a0from a much stronger turnout among Democratic-leaning Hispanic voters. In the New Jersey exit poll, Hispanic voters who cast ballots in 2025 reported backing Ms. Harris by 25 points; in the actual 2024 election, Ms. Harris won Hispanic voters by just nine points, according to New York Times estimates.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

While exit poll data is notoriously imperfect, Cohn\u00a0determined\u00a0that\u00a0it\u00a0is \u201cconsistent with other available data,\u201d namely the \u201cindividual-level records of who voted in an election,\u201d which were available in half of New Jersey\u2019s counties. They showed a 2.5-point shift toward Democrats, compared to 2024,\u00a0in the electorate\u2019s party registration. As\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0not enough to account for\u00a0Sherrill\u2019s 13-point victory, a reasonable conclusion is\u00a0that\u00a0she also flipped\u00a0Trump voters, and the exit poll data\u00a0suggests a\u00a0significant\u00a0number\u00a0of those were Latino.\u00a0<\/p>\n

California\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0have a gubernatorial election; instead,\u00a0it held\u00a0a referendum on\u00a0congressional\u00a0redistricting,\u00a0which\u00a0temporarily suspended\u00a0the work of the state\u2019s independent redistricting commission.\u00a0Governor Gavin Newsom pushed\u00a0Proposition 50\u00a0to counter\u00a0July\u2019s\u00a0Republican redistricting of Texas. Texas Republicans\u00a0had\u00a0hoped to gain five House seats through\u00a0their redistricting, and now California legislators have the power to do the same for\u00a0Democrats.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Proposition 50 passed handily, and it seems with the help of Latinos who voted for Trump last year. Thirteen California counties\u00a0have a\u00a0majority-Latino\u00a0population<\/a>, and Trump won 11 of them in\u00a0the\u00a02024\u00a0election.\u00a0In five of those counties\u2014Imperial, Merced,\u00a0San Bernardino, Fresno, Riverside\u2014a majority voted for Proposition 50<\/a>.\u00a0In the other six, the margin for opposition to Proposition 50 is smaller than Trump\u2019s 2024 victory margin.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Latino vote is far from monolithic.\u00a0For example,\u00a0New Jersey Latinos are mainly Puerto Rican\u00a0(and therefore, not\u00a0from\u00a0immigrant\u00a0families)\u00a0and Dominican.\u00a0In contrast,\u00a0Latinos in the\u00a0West\u00a0are\u00a0primarily\u00a0Mexican.\u00a0Yet in\u00a02024, we saw broad shifts toward Trump across Latino communities, and in 2025\u2014after Trump unleashed ICE and the military to lead a massive and haphazard deportation campaign, while doing nothing to lower the cost of living as promised in the 2024\u00a0campaign\u2014we appear to be seeing that pendulum\u00a0swing back.\u00a0So that means what\u00a0we\u2019re\u00a0seeing in New Jersey and California may also apply to Texas. And that should terrify Republicans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As I wrote for the\u00a0Washington Monthly\u00a0three months ago<\/a>, when Republicans redrew the Texas congressional map, they placed a dangerous bet:\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to\u00a0The Texas Tribune, \u201cFour of the five districts that Republicans have drawn intending to flip would be majority Hispanic.\u201d Historically, a majority-Hispanic district would be a sure bet to vote Democratic. But in 2024, Donald Trump romped in the heavily Latino South Texas, flipping seven counties south of San Antonio. Exit polls pegged Trump\u2019s support among Latinos statewide at 55 percent.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, a gerrymander moves\u00a0reliably\u00a0partisan voters into the districts you want to flip, and moving\u00a0swing\u00a0voters is a gamble.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the time, Trump\u2019s\u00a0approval among Hispanics in several\u00a0national\u00a0polls was\u00a0weak, and it\u00a0hasn\u2019t\u00a0gotten any better, ranging from 29 to 34 percent in\u00a0recent\u00a0Washington Post-ABC,<\/a>\u00a0The Economist-YouGov,<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0CBS News-YouGov<\/a>\u00a0polls. And\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0going south in Texas. A new\u00a0survey,\u00a0conducted\u00a0in mid-October\u00a0by\u00a0the\u00a0University of Texas and the Texas Politics Project,\u00a0indicates that\u00a0Hispanic approval of Trump\u00a0stands\u00a0at 32 percent,<\/a>\u00a0down from\u00a038 percent in June<\/a>. Banking on Hispanic votes to help Republicans gain five House seats, when\u00a0Texas\u00a0Hispanics\u00a0have never been\u00a0a reliable GOP voting bloc and\u00a0are\u00a0souring on Trump by the day, is short-sighted.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

But\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0not saying anything about which Texas Republicans\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0warn Trump.\u00a0The Texas Tribune\u00a0previously reported:<\/a>\u00a0\u201cGov. Greg Abbott was initially resistant to the plan pushed by President Donald Trump\u2019s political team to pick up new GOP seats through a rare mid-decade redistricting \u2026 The majority of\u00a0Texas\u2019s\u00a0GOP congressional delegation was also wary of the idea, with many members concerned that Republican map-drawers could miscalculate and spread their voters too thin\u2014thus putting their jobs in jeopardy\u2014while trying to flip Democratic seats, six people involved in internal delegation discussions told\u00a0The Texas Tribune.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Of course,\u00a0standard caveats apply. Much can change between November 2025 and November 2026. Even Trump seems to recognize\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0painted himself into a political corner,\u00a0telling reporters after Election Day<\/a>: \u201cThe shutdown was\u00a0a big factor, negative for the Republicans \u2026 We must get the government back open soon\u2014and really,\u00a0immediately.\u201d\u00a0But off-year elections\u00a0are often\u00a0bellwethers for midterm elections. Considering that Trump has done nothing\u00a0for\u00a0Latinos, but done plenty\u00a0to\u00a0Latinos,\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0be surprised if Latino embrace of Trump proves short-lived, and the\u00a0gerrymandered\u00a0Texas map becomes\u00a0a humiliating own goal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated\n<\/p>\n

\"Our<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The surprise of the 2024 elections was Donald Trump\u2019s gains with Latino voters despite his anti-immigrant fearmongering.\u00a0The entirely…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[24352,24353,24354,13543,24355,24356,27,10841,29,28,292,12902,24357],"class_list":["post-39472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-2026-midterms","tag-hispanic-vote","tag-latino-swing-voters","tag-latino-voters","tag-mikie-sherrill","tag-prop-50","tag-texas","tag-texas-gerrymandering","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-politics","tag-texas-redistricting","tag-trump-latino-support"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}