U.S. President Donald Trump reacts during the Republican National Midterm Convention in Dallas, Texas, U.S., September 9, 2026. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
President Donald Trump has been slowly losing the key coalition of voters he built for his 2024 success, including Latino voters, particularly in Texas. It comes at a difficult time, with Trump's hand-picked Senate candidate in a politically perilous position as the Nov. 3 election nears.
The Cook Political Report revealed that, in a new survey conducted in partnership with TelevisaUnivision, Democratic candidates in Texas are leading their Republican opponents by a 2-1 margin.
This comes after Trump pushed Texas Republicans to redraw their congressional district lines to redistribute Republican voters from very safe districts to those that are closer and less secure. The problem is that Trump and the Texas GOP were going off of Trump voters in 2024. Now that those supporters are abandoning him in droves, there might be more Democratic pick-up opportunities in Texas.
Publisher Amy Walter explained in a post on X that the 2024 coalition is "in shambles. Almost 1 in 5 Trump ‘24 voters now disapprove of POTUS. Talarico leads Paxton by 33. In Rio Grande Valley, Democrats lead [the] generic [ballot] by 14." The generic ballot is when pollsters ask, regardless of the candidate, which party one supports.
The report also cautioned that Latino voters are well aware that they play a big role in the state's elections.
"Seven in ten said they think Hispanics in the state have a lot or some political influence, including 41 percent who said they have 'real political power' in Texas," the report said. "Moreover, two-thirds said they’d like candidates to conduct outreach in the Hispanic community in Spanish, and 69 percent said they believe candidates signal that they 'want to earn my vote' when they appear on Spanish-language media."
In 2024, Trump carried Latino voters by 10 percent and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) won them by 3 percent. This year, Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico is winning Hispanic voters with 63 percent of the vote. His GOP opponent only has about 30 percent of those voters. It also includes 73 percent of self-described independent voters who support Talarico.
The governor's race is only slightly better for long-time leader Greg Abbott. In 2022, he scored 40 percent with Hispanic voters. Now, his Democratic opponent Rep. Gina Hinojosa, leads with Hispanic voters, 60 percent to 33 percent.
The shift is coming as a result of Trump's mistakes in the first two years of his second term. He's lost 18 percent of his Hispanic base since 2024. While attention is focused on the Senate race, where 19 percent of Hispanic Trump voters support Talarico over Paxton, the congressional races are worse. According to the Cook numbers, 22 percent of Hispanic Trump voters don't support Republican House candidates when asked which party they'd vote for.
