First Courted, Then Hunted: Trump Is Losing the Latinos Who Helped Put Him Back in Power

In 2024, Donald Trump won 42 percent of the Latino vote, a result no Republican had ever achieved before. Right away, people started talking about a new, multiracial coalition on the right, proof that his message resonated across backgrounds. Commentators saw a lasting political realignment, the end of the old assumption that these votes belonged to Democrats. It took less than 2 years to turn courtship into a manhunt. Two new polls from NBC and Telemundo show that a majority of Latinos have turned away from him, a shift that has been underway since he returned to office and began his ruthless crackdown on immigrants.

The numbers are clear. Ahead of the midterms, 59 percent of Latinos say they plan to vote Democratic, nearly twice as many as in 2024. In a second poll, 60 percent prefer Democratic candidates for the House. 69 percent disapprove of Trump's job performance. These numbers do not represent a slight decline, they represent a collapse. Two separate polls paint the same picture. The dream of a multiracial right is all but dead.

The reasons are out in the open. His economic policies are turning them off, and so is his failure to do anything about rising prices. He promised a cheaper life, what he delivered were raids. Then came the mass deportations that have swept through entire neighborhoods since his return to the White House. Many of these voters had hoped for order and a chance to get ahead, not body armor outside their own front doors. 2 years of violent arrests and abductions. Gunfire and pepper balls. Deaths. Families who have worked here for years disappear from one day to the next. In their neighborhoods, a knock on the door now decides how the day will go.

That is how Trump is teaching his own voters what their vote is worth to him. He took it, then sent the officers after them. Loyalty is repaid with handcuffs. The hope of 2024 has turned into fear in 2 years, and fear votes differently than confidence.

That does not make this an automatic win for Democrats. 42 percent of Latinos also view that party negatively, a party that let 2 years of violence pass without making anything of it. Trump has driven away the people who helped deliver his success. The fact that the other side has barely benefited from it so far remains its own failure.