‘We’re in a red sinkhole’: Plummeting Latino support for Republicans could swing the midterms

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Two years ago, aircraft worker Mayumi Castro Fernandez voted for Donald Trump. But on Friday afternoon, she was canvassing a Miami neighborhood for the Democrat challenging an incumbent House Republican in a district where Latinos souring on the president could hand Democrats a win in next month’s midterms — and help propel the party to congressional majorities.

“All the prices go up — the gas, the food, the health insurance,” said Castro Fernandez, a Cuban American who identifies politically as independent and was canvassing with her union, which has backed the Democrat. By the end of the month, she said, families don’t “have all the money we need.”

“We need a change,” she said. “I change my mind. They can change it too.”

Latinos have emerged in recent years as perhaps the biggest group of swing voters in the United States. And if results next month mirror polls that suggest the nation’s 36 million Latino voters are shifting in significant numbers in Democrats’ favor, those voters could be responsible for handing the party control of Congress for the final two years of Trump’s presidency.

Traditionally a Democratic-leaning portion of the electorate in most of the nation, Latinos swung heavily toward Trump in the 2024 election — igniting Republican dreams of a long-term political realignment that could remake the American political map, particularly across the growing South.

But the economic frustrations that helped propel Trump to victory are now fueling dissatisfaction among many of those same voters with Republicans who fully control the federal government.

An NBC News/Telemundo poll released this month found that Latino voters say by a 24-point margin, 59% to 35%, that they’d prefer to see the Democrats win control of Congress over the Republicans in November. Exit polls in 2024 found that Trump drew 46% of the Latino vote, compared with 51% for Democrat Kamala Harris. In the NBC/Telemundo poll, just 27% of Latino voters approve of Trump’s job performance overall, with an even smaller 20% approving of his handling of the cost of living.

“They’re moving away from Republicans for the same reason they moved away from Democrats two years ago,” said Republican strategist Mike Madrid, who has written extensively about what he calls a “dealignment” in which large shares of Latino voters hold no party loyalty and cast their votes against what they see as “failed government.”

“Neither party is providing a compelling vision or results-oriented policy for working-class people,” Madrid said. “We are in many ways witnessing an emergent Latino populism that is anti-establishment — meaning both parties.”

The likelihood of another massive swing in the Latino vote is showing up in polls far beyond South Florida. From California’s Central Valley, to House battles in Arizona and Colorado, to a Senate contest in Georgia, where the Latino population is rapidly growing, a big shift in the Latino electorate could tilt a number of outcomes on November 3.

Tory Gavito, a Democratic strategist who leads the progressive donor network Way to Win, said her group’s research shows that Latino voters believed Trump’s pledge to “shake things up” in 2024 — and were willing to ignore his harsh immigration rhetoric because they didn’t identify themselves as among the “bad hombres” he would target.

But now, she said, “they don’t see prices getting lowered, they don’t see an increase in jobs, and many mixed-status families are living in fear.”

“I don’t think we’re in a blue wave,” Gavito said. “I think we’re in a red sinkhole.”

Gabriel V. Cardenas/Reuters

The shift is bolstering Democrats’ chances in Texas, where a Senate race that initially looked like a long shot is now a nail-biter, making it one of several traditionally red states that Democrats are targeting this year as they look for the net gain of four seats necessary to claim a majority.

Strong Latino support could also allow Democrats to retain several of the House seats the GOP redrew in a mid-decade redistricting battle last year .

Those districts, particularly in the Rio Grande Valley, were drawn based on Trump’s strong 2024 performance. But if Latino voters in South Texas are now leaning in Democrats’ favor, the GOP’s chances of ousting 28th District Rep. Henry Cuellar and 34th District Rep. Vicente Gonzalez could evaporate. And Democrat Bobby Pulido, a Grammy-winning Tejano singer, could oust Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz of the 15th District.

“Republicans misread the love and the fervor of the MAGA movement as being something that was really deeply ingrained in Latino communities, and overshot their hand,” Gavito said.

In interviews with CNN, Latino voters pointed to economic challenges, including the price of gas and food; the GOP’s cuts to healthcare funding; and Trump’s aggressive mass deportation efforts as reasons for their dissatisfaction with the first two years of his second term.

“Immigration policy is very tough right now. That is precisely why the economy is so weak, with the raids and all that,” said Irma González, a restaurant owner in McAllen, Texas — a Rio Grande Valley city that is split between two competitive House districts. “Many people simply don’t want to go out.”

James Talarico, the Democratic state representative running against Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton in the key Texas Senate race, visited her shop where she makes homemade tortillas. González said her impression was that he “genuinely wants to help us.”

“I hope he wins and does something good — something better,” she said.

Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Florida, meanwhile, is home to a diverse population of Latino voters, including Cubans in and around Miami who are traditionally conservative; Puerto Ricans in Central Florida who swung in huge numbers toward Trump in 2024; and Venezuelans around Miami and Orlando, many of whom are angry that Trump ended temporary protected status for Venezuelan nationals last year.

The state looked like much more of a reach for Democrats — not part of the party’s path to a Senate majority, particularly after democratic socialist Angie Nixon won its nomination to take on Republican Sen. Ashley Moody. But it has appeared surprisingly competitive , including in the contests for governor and multiple House seats, in the final stretch toward November’s midterms.

Because the state mostly sits in the Eastern time zone and counts its votes quickly, strong Democratic performances could be an early indicator on election night of a blue wave set to sweep the country.

Karina Castillo, a Venezuelan American attorney who lives in the Venezuelan-heavy suburb of Doral, said she voted for Trump in 2024 in part because she thought he would bring more order to the immigration process. But nearly two years into his second term, Castillo, an independent, said she regrets her decision, arguing his policy has gone too far.

She said the Trump administration has jailed or deported “a lot of people” who are “doing things right,” including waiting for the legal immigration process to play out.

She also expressed concern with Trump’s attempts to revoke birthright citizenship and his backing of Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez , who was vice president to the ousted President Nicolás Maduro.

“A lot of Republicans support him blindfolded, I don’t understand why,” Castillo said. “You cannot be blindfolded. You need to see what’s going on.”

A strong Democratic statewide performance could help the party flip seats like that of Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, a former Spanish-language news anchor who represents Florida’s 27th Congressional District, based in Miami-Dade County, and faces Democrat Eliott Rodriguez, also a former television news anchor.

Salazar won the overwhelmingly Latino district by nearly 21 percentage points in 2024. But she made waves, and laid bare the GOP angst over losing Latino voters, last month in an advertisement that was a message aimed directly at Trump.

Looking straight into the camera, Salazar told Trump that “some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far.”

“Be careful what your advisers are telling you about immigration policy,” she said. “The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today.”

Rodriguez argued in an interview with CNN on Friday that Salazar’s record doesn’t track with her ad, noting his opponent voted to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and criticizing her past comments defending Alligator Alcatraz’s conditions after she toured the now-closed detention facility in Florida.

“I think voters in this district are smart enough to see through this and see this as crocodile tears,” he said.

Rodriguez spoke to CNN after campaigning with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries at a coffee shop in Pinecrest as Democrats grow optimistic this district could be in play.

“People are hurting. People don’t have money to pay rent. People don’t have money to buy groceries. Gas is out of control, and also this immigration policy of this administration is impacting this district,” Rodriguez said.

At a steakhouse in Miami on Saturday morning, Salazar made remarks echoing Republican messaging casting the Democratic Party as a whole as socialists, warning “this ideology has nothing to do with us or with this nation.” (Asked whether the democratic socialist movement complicates his campaign in Florida, Rodriguez said: “Let me make it crystal clear. There’s nothing socialist about me. Nothing communist. I am the product of capitalism and free enterprise.”)

Salazar wove through the crowd at the steakhouse, snapping photos as Latin music played before speaking to voters in Spanish.

“That’s the beauty of District 27 — that you speak in Spanish but you vote in English,” she said.

CNN’s Ariel Edwards-Levy, Carolina Peguero and Elise Hammond contributed to this report.

乔·雷德尔/盖蒂图片社

两年前，飞机维修工人玛尤米·卡斯特罗·费尔南德斯投票支持唐纳德·特朗普。但上周五下午，她却在迈阿密的一个社区为一位民主党候选人拉票，这位候选人正在挑战一位现任共和党众议员。在这个选区，拉丁裔选民对总统的态度日益冷淡，这可能会让民主党在下个月的中期选举中获胜，并帮助该党赢得国会多数席位。

“所有东西的价格都在上涨——汽油、食品、医疗保险，”卡斯特罗·费尔南德斯说道。她是一位古巴裔美国人，政治立场独立，当时正和支持民主党候选人的工会一起进行竞选宣传。她说，到月底，很多家庭“就拿不出足够的钱了”。

“我们需要改变，”她说。“我可以改变主意，他们也可以改变主意。”

近年来，拉丁裔选民或许已成为美国最大的摇摆选民群体。如果下个月的选举结果与民调结果相符，即全国3600万拉丁裔选民正大量倒向民主党，那么这些选民可能将决定民主党能否在特朗普总统任期的最后两年掌控国会。

传统上，拉丁裔选民在全国大部分地区倾向于民主党，但在 2024 年大选中，他们却大量倒向了特朗普——这点燃了共和党人对长期政治重组的梦想，这种重组可能会重塑美国的政治版图，尤其是在不断壮大的南方地区。

但正是经济上的挫败感帮助特朗普赢得了胜利，而如今，这些挫败感却加剧了许多选民对完全控制联邦政府的共和党人的不满。

本月公布的NBC新闻/Telemundo民调显示，59%的拉丁裔选民表示，他们更希望民主党在11月的大选中击败共和党，赢得国会控制权，这一比例比共和党高出24个百分点（35%）。2024年的出口民调显示，特朗普获得了46%的拉丁裔选票，而民主党候选人卡马拉·哈里斯则获得了51%。在NBC/Telemundo的民调中，仅有27%的拉丁裔选民认可特朗普的整体执政表现，而认可他应对生活成本问题的比例更低，仅为20%。

“他们疏远共和党的原因与两年前疏远民主党的原因相同，”共和党策略师迈克·马德里说道。他曾就他所谓的“脱离联盟”现象撰写过大量文章，在这种现象中，很大一部分拉丁裔选民没有党派忠诚度，并将选票投向他们眼中的“失败的政府”。

马德里说：“两党都没有为工薪阶层提供令人信服的愿景或以结果为导向的政策。从很多方面来看，我们正在目睹一种新兴的拉丁裔民粹主义，这种民粹主义是反建制的——这意味着它反对两党。”

拉丁裔选民再次出现大规模摇摆的可能性，已在南佛罗里达州以外的民调中显现出来。从加州中央谷地，到亚利桑那州和科罗拉多州的众议院席位争夺战，再到拉丁裔人口快速增长的佐治亚州的参议院选举，拉丁裔选民的重大转变可能会影响11月3日的多项选举结果。

领导进步捐助者网络“致胜之路”（Way to Win）的民主党策略师托里·加维托表示，她所在组织的研究表明，拉丁裔选民相信特朗普在2024年“做出改变”的承诺，并且愿意忽略他强硬的移民言论，因为他们不认为自己是特朗普要打击的“坏家伙”。

但她表示，现在“他们看不到物价下降，看不到就业机会增加，许多混合身份家庭都生活在恐惧之中。”

“我不认为我们正处于蓝色浪潮之中，”加维托说。“我认为我们正陷入红色深渊。”

加布里埃尔·V·卡德纳斯/路透社

这一转变增强了民主党在德克萨斯州的胜算。此前，一场看似希望渺茫的参议院选举如今已演变成一场势均力敌的较量。德克萨斯州是民主党今年重点关注的几个传统上支持共和党的州之一，他们希望净增四个席位，从而获得多数席位。

拉丁裔选民的强力支持也可能使民主党保住共和党在去年中期选区重划中重新划分的几个众议院席位。

这些选区，尤其是在格兰德河谷地区，是根据特朗普在2024年大选中的强劲表现而划分的。但如果南德克萨斯州的拉丁裔选民现在倾向于民主党，那么共和党想要击败第28选区众议员亨利·奎利亚尔和第34选区众议员维森特·冈萨雷斯的希望可能就彻底破灭了。而民主党人、格莱美奖得主、特哈诺音乐歌手鲍比·普利多则有可能击败第15选区的共和党众议员莫妮卡·德拉克鲁兹。

加维托说：“共和党人误判了MAGA运动的热情和激情，以为这种热情和激情深深植根于拉丁裔社区，结果弄巧成拙。”

在接受 CNN 采访时，拉丁裔选民指出，经济挑战（包括汽油和食品价格）、共和党削减医疗保健资金以及特朗普咄咄逼人的大规模驱逐行动，是他们对特朗普第二个任期前两年不满的原因。

“现在的移民政策非常严格。正是因为这些，加上突袭行动等等，经济才如此疲软，”德克萨斯州麦卡伦市的一位餐馆老板伊尔玛·冈萨雷斯说道。麦卡伦市位于格兰德河谷，被划分为两个竞争激烈的众议院选区。“很多人根本不想出门。”

在关键的德克萨斯州参议院选举中，民主党州众议员詹姆斯·塔拉里科（James Talarico）正在与共和党籍总检察长肯·帕克斯顿（Ken Paxton）角逐。他曾到访冈萨雷斯的店里，这家店出售自制玉米饼。冈萨雷斯说，她感觉塔拉里科“真心想帮助我们”。

“我希望他能赢，并且做一些好事——一些更好的事，”她说。

Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg/Getty Images

与此同时，佛罗里达州拥有多元化的拉丁裔选民群体，其中包括迈阿密及其周边地区的古巴裔选民（他们传统上比较保守）；佛罗里达州中部的波多黎各裔选民（他们在 2024 年大选中大量倒向特朗普）；以及迈阿密和奥兰多周边的委内瑞拉裔选民（他们中的许多人对特朗普去年终止委内瑞拉国民的临时保护身份感到愤怒）。

对于民主党人来说，这个州似乎是一个遥不可及的目标——它并非该党赢得参议院多数席位的途径之一，尤其是在民主社会主义者安吉·尼克松赢得党内提名挑战共和党参议员阿什利·穆迪之后。然而，在11月中期选举的最后冲刺阶段，该州的选情却出人意料地激烈，包括州长和多个众议院席位的竞选。

由于该州大部分地区位于东部时区，计票速度很快，因此民主党的强劲表现可能预示着选举之夜将出现席卷全国的蓝色浪潮。

卡琳娜·卡斯蒂略是一位委内瑞拉裔美国律师，居住在委内瑞拉裔人口密集的郊区多拉尔。她说，她在2024年投票给特朗普，部分原因是她认为他能让移民程序更加有序。但特朗普第二个任期已近两年，这位独立选民表示，她后悔当初的决定，认为他的政策走得太远了。

她说，特朗普政府监禁或驱逐了“很多”“按规矩办事”的人，包括等待合法移民程序完成的人。

她还对特朗普试图取消出生公民权以及支持委内瑞拉代理总统德尔西·罗德里格斯（曾任被罢黜总统尼古拉斯·马杜罗的副总统）表示担忧。

卡斯蒂略说：“很多共和党人盲目地支持他，我不明白为什么。你不能被蒙蔽双眼，你需要看清发生了什么。”

民主党在全州范围内取得强劲表现，可能会帮助该党赢得席位，例如共和党众议员玛丽亚·埃尔维拉·萨拉萨尔的席位。萨拉萨尔曾是一名西班牙语新闻主播，代表佛罗里达州第 27 国会选区，该选区位于迈阿密-戴德县。她的对手是民主党人埃利奥特·罗德里格斯，后者也是一名前电视新闻主播。

萨拉扎尔在 2024 年以近 21 个百分点的优势赢得了这个拉丁裔选民占绝对优势的选区。但上个月，她在一则直接针对特朗普的广告中引起了轩然大波，也暴露了共和党对失去拉丁裔选民的焦虑。

萨拉扎尔直视镜头告诉特朗普，“你的一些移民执法行动做得太过火了。”

“要小心你的顾问们在移民政策方面给你的建议，”她说。“那些曾帮助你入主白宫的西班牙裔人士，如今却感到被背叛了。”

罗德里格斯周五在接受 CNN 采访时辩称，萨拉扎尔的记录与她的广告不符，他指出他的对手曾投票支持为移民和海关执法局提供资金，并批评了她过去在参观了现已关闭的佛罗里达州鳄鱼阿尔卡特拉斯拘留中心后，为该拘留中心的状况辩护的言论。

“我认为这个选区的选民足够聪明，能够看穿这一切，看出这是鳄鱼的眼泪，”他说。

罗德里格斯在派恩克雷斯特的一家咖啡馆与众议院少数党领袖哈基姆·杰弗里斯一起进行竞选活动后接受了 CNN 的采访，民主党人越来越乐观地认为该选区可能会成为争夺的目标。

罗德里格斯说：“人们生活艰难。人们没钱交房租，没钱买菜。汽油价格失控，而且本届政府的移民政策也影响着这个地区。”

周六上午，萨拉扎尔在迈阿密一家牛排馆发表讲话，呼应了共和党的论调，将整个民主党描绘成社会主义者，并警告说“这种意识形态与我们或这个国家毫无关系。”（当被问及民主社会主义运动是否会影响他在佛罗里达州的竞选时，罗德里格斯说：“让我把话说清楚。我身上没有任何社会主义的成分，也没有任何共产主义的成分。我是资本主义和自由企业的产物。”）

萨拉萨尔穿梭在牛排馆的人群中，伴随着拉丁音乐的播放，他一边拍照一边用西班牙语向选民发表讲话。

“这就是第 27 选区的魅力所在——你讲西班牙语，但投票用英语，”她说。

CNN的Ariel Edwards-Levy、Carolina Peguero和Elise Hammond对本报道亦有贡献。