Not so fast: Trump just lost 20% of key supporters in Texas

President Donald Trump’s preferred candidate in the Texas Senate race, Attorney General Ken Paxton, defeated incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in Tuesday’s Republican primary. Yet according to a recent report, Paxton’s victory over Cornyn may hurt Trump among a constituency he relied upon to win in the 2024 election — Hispanic voters.

“One in five Latino Texans who voted for President Donald Trump in 2024 would not support him again if given a redo, according to a new poll released Wednesday,” The Texas Tribune's Alejandro Serrano wrote on Wednesday.

“In a survey of 500 registered Latino voters, the Latino civil rights organization UnidosUS found that two-thirds disapprove of Trump's job performance, the same share that said they did not feel Trump and congressional Republicans were ‘focusing enough on improving the economy for people like you,’” Serrano added. “Nearly half of voters cited cost of living and inflation as a top issue shaping their view of Trump — more than any other issue, with immigration enforcement in cities also ranking high in the list.”

Quoting the vice president of a group that specializes on Latino voters, Serrano cited Clarissa Martínez De Castro as saying that “the economic priorities dominate. Some people call it ‘buyer's remorse,' other people ‘do over.'"

Serrano noted that Trump won 55 percent of the Latino bloc in the 2024 election, and that in turn helped Republicans in Texas perform better among Latino voters than they ever had before. Yet of the 300 out of 500 voters surveyed by UnidosUS who also lived in Texas swing districts, “a slight majority of respondents — 54 percent — said they planned to vote for the Democratic candidate for Congress; 27 percent said they'd support the Republican, while the rest were undecided,” Serrano reported. Meanwhile Paxton’s Democratic opponent in the upcoming election, James Talarico, has a “more than 2-to-1 margin among Latino voters, as did Democratic gubernatorial nominee Gina Hinojosa over Gov. Greg Abbott. Election after election, Texas Democrats won the Latino vote by wide margins.”

He added, “Former President Barack Obama and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton each won Latino voters by nearly 30 points in 2008 and 2016, respectively, according to exit polls. But the domination began to erode by 2020, when former President Joe Biden won the bloc by 17 points — foreshadowing Trump's striking gains four years later.”

Trump’s floundering fate in Texas is not limited to Hispanic voters. According to the political predictions firm Cook Political Report, Democrats’ chance of winning in Texas has moved from “likely Republican” to “lean Republican,” with its experts saying things could get worse for Trump in that state.

"Paxton has a litany of ethical lapses for Democrats to exploit — from allegations of bribery and misuse of his office to marital infidelity, which led his wife to divorce him on ‘biblical grounds,’” Jessica Taylor, Senate and governors editor for the Cook Political Report, said in a statement. “Given the national environment, this is a race that certainly may have become competitive even if Cornyn had won, but Paxton’s flaws warrant an immediate move to the Lean column."

Speaking to AlterNet on Tuesday, the managing editor of a different political predictions firm, Sabato’s Crystal Ball, made a similar observation about the House of Representatives.

"We think Democrats are still favored to win the House, even though Republicans have helped themselves through redistricting," Kondik told AlterNet. "The national environment just seems like it'll be enough to push Democrats to the majority."