Latinos for Trump signs the 2016 Republican National Convention (Voice of America/Wikimedia Commons)
Donald Trump has run for president four times, starting with a short-lived Reform Party campaign in 2000. And his 2024 campaign was his most successful, marking the first time he won the popular vote. It was a close election, but his gains among Latinos, Generation Z, independents and swing voters helped him pull off a narrow victory of roughly 1.5 percent over Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in the national popular vote.
In 2024, according to Pew Research Center, Trump won 48 percent of the Latino vote. Harris outperformed him among Latinos, but not by much.
Almost a year into his second presidency, however, many polls are showing Trump's support among Latinos plummeting. And according to a focus group reported by NOTUS' Alex Roarty on January 16, Trump's "problem with Latinos might run much deeper than just their dissatisfaction with the economy."
"In a focus group of politically independent Latino men and women this week, seven voters — all of whom supported the president in 2024 but said they now had regrets about their decision — expressed a deep concern about Trump's handling of the economy and cost-of-living issues," Roarty explains. "But the session, hosted by the liberal Navigator Research and viewed by NOTUS, also revealed a growing fury at other aspects of Trump's second term, especially his aggressive immigration enforcement and sudden eagerness to intervene in foreign affairs."
Roarty adds, "Many of the participants said they've changed how they see Trump personally — no longer the crude-but-pragmatic leader of his first term, but rather, someone who is sinister and out of control."
A male Latino in his forties told the focus group, "It's not the same person. It's not the same president. So it's been very dismaying."
A woman in her thirties told the group, "It just seems like the mask is off. That's who he is. And it's kind of crazy."
Democratic pollster Margie Omero, who conducted the focus group, drew a contrast between Trump's second presidency and his first.
Omero told NOTUS, "During the first term, they saw him and said, 'Oh, I wish he wouldn't tweet so much. You heard all that. That part is not new. But now, it's escalated. It's not new, but it’s gotten worse. People feel like it's borne out by the kind of policies he has embraced."
Read the full NOTUS article at this link.
