President Donald Trump is seeing a weakening of support among certain Latino voters in Florida, a group that had helped him bolster the Republican coalition in 2024, as his administration's immigration enforcement moves further into the South Florida communities.
A Washington Post article states that Republican lawmakers in parts of Florida with a large Latino population are having to justify their support for Trump as they deal with voters who are dissatisfied with the way immigration enforcement is being managed. This tension is particularly apparent in Miami-Dade County, since Trump had won over Kamala Harris by more than 125,000 votes in 2024 following years of Republican support among Hispanic voters.
Rep. María Elvira Salazar of Florida, a member of the Republican Party, is one of the clearest examples of this. The representative, who covers a district that is about three-quarters Hispanic, put out a campaign advertisement this month explicitly asking Trump to alter his course.
Salazar told Trump in the advertisement that some of your immigration enforcement actions have gone too far. She also stated that Hispanic voters who had helped Trump get back to the White House now feel betrayed.
A poll conducted by the Republicans and provided to Axios at the beginning of this month showed the division among Hispanic voters in Miami-Dade. Sixty-three percent favoured the deportation of those immigrants who are in the country illegally, while 34 percent opposed it. However, when the question was asked about the way in which deportations were being carried out, only 29 percent approved and 58 percent disapproved.
The figures show that there is a difference between support for more rigorous immigration enforcement and dissatisfaction with certain tactics used by the administration.
The figures cited by The Post indicated that over half of those arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in July had no criminal conviction and no outstanding criminal charges, while Reuters subsequently stated that more than three-quarters of the recent ICE arrests had concerned people who had no criminal convictions or charges.
Salazar is also having a harder reelection fight than the Republicans had originally anticipated. A poll carried out internally by Democratic candidate Eliott Rodriguez showed the two candidates tied at 45 percent, although internal campaign polling may not be reliable and the Cook Political Report still classifies the seat as "likely Republican".
Trump has dismissed Salazar's criticism. He had previously stated in this month that she had become "softer" on the border and maintained that his immigration policies were a major factor in his win in 2024.
Florida is still a firmly Republican state at the statewide level. In 2024, Trump received 56.1 percent of the vote, versus 43 per ent for Harris. However, the response in the heavily Latino part of South Florida gives Republicans a chance to see if the coalition that contributed to that margin will still be there by the 2026 midterms.