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La Prensa News Desk
Latino voters who moved in large numbers toward Republicans and Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election are now moving back toward Democratic congressional candidates heading into the 2026 midterm elections, according to several recent polls.
A July national poll by the Pew Research Center found that 49% of Hispanic registered voters said they would vote for the Democratic candidate in their congressional district, compared with 26% who said they would vote for the Republican candidate. Another 18% were undecided and 6% said they would support another candidate.
The results represent a significant change from the 2024 presidential election, where Latino voters were nearly evenly divided between Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris despite Trump’s aggressive stance to deport millions of undocumented immigrants.
Pew's analysis of validated voters found that 48% of Latino voters supported Trump in 2024, but only 28% in 2016. Trump’s 2024 performance represented a significant improvement over his previous presidential campaigns and marked one of the strongest Republican performances among Latino voters in modern presidential elections.
The current Democratic advantage is also reflected in polling of Latino voters in competitive congressional districts.
A national survey of 1,500 Latino registered voters in 17 competitive House districts, conducted August 6-17 by Hart Research for TelevisaUnivision, found Democratic congressional candidates leading Republicans 58% to 35% on the generic congressional ballot, a 23-point advantage for Democrats.
In the same survey, Latino voters reported supporting Harris over Trump by 51% to 40% in the 2024 presidential election, producing only an 11-point Democratic advantage. The current congressional preference therefore represents a substantially wider Democratic margin than the reported 2024 presidential vote among the same group.
The change, however, is not uniform across the country.
In three competitive Texas congressional districts included in the Hart Research/TelevisaUnivision survey, Latino voters went from a reported 44%-44% split between Trump and Harris in 2024 to a 56%-36% preference for Democratic congressional candidates in 2026.
And in two Florida congressional districts surveyed, Latino voters went from a one-point Trump advantage in 2024 to a 13-point Democratic advantage on the current congressional ballot.
A May UnidosUS bipartisan survey of 3,000 Hispanic voters found that 37% said they voted for Trump in 2024, compared with 57% who said they voted for Harris. Among those who voted for Trump, 75% said they would vote for him again if given the choice, while 25% said they probably or certainly would not.
At the same time, Trump's standing among Latino voters has declined from the start of his second term.
A Pew Research Center survey conducted in April found that 66% of Latino voters who had supported Trump in 2024 still approved of his job performance, but that represented a 27-point decline from the beginning of his second term. Among non-Hispanic voters who had supported Trump, approval had fallen by 16 points.
Economic concerns appear to be an important factor.
The Hart Research/TelevisaUnivision survey found that the economy remained a leading concern among Latino voters, with Democrats holding a 62%-36% advantage over Republicans when voters were asked which party they trusted more to lower prices.
Trump's immigration policies are also drawing negative evaluations among the Latino voters surveyed. 62% disapproved of his administration's immigration enforcement and deportation policies, while 63% disapproved of his overall job performance in the competitive congressional districts surveyed.
San Diego only has one competitive congressional district; the 48th District in north county. Republican San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond, a former Mayor of San Marcos, is facing San Diego City Councilwoman Marni von Wilpert, a former city attorney, in a district that was redrawn by Proposition 50 in the November 2024 eletion. The new map made the district more favorable to Democrats.
A recent SurveyUSA poll found Desmond and von Wilpert in a statistical tie with 13% still undecided.
The election is November 3, but mail ballots will begin to land in mailboxes the week of Oct 5.
