Latinos make up about 16% of all voters and have long been swing voters

Trump's approval rating among Latino voters stands at just 27%, NBC poll finds

US President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington on Sunday (local time). [AP]
US President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington on Sunday (local time). [AP]

A poll released Sunday (local time) showed that a significant share of Latino voters in the United States have turned away from President Donald Trump and the Republican Party.

The survey, conducted by NBC News in partnership with Spanish-language network Telemundo, found that 59 percent of Latino respondents want Democrats to control Congress, compared with 35 percent who prefer Republicans. That gap of 24 percentage points is roughly double the 13-point Democratic advantage — 54 percent to 42 percent — recorded in a comparable poll conducted ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

Latino voters, broadly defined as Americans of Latin American origin and often referred to interchangeably as Hispanic, account for about 16 percent of the total US electorate. While they lean Democratic overall, they are widely classified as swing voters whose preferences shift from election to election.

Latino support played a significant role in Trump's return to the White House. Republican support among Latino voters ahead of presidential or midterm elections climbed from 21 percent in 2016 to 33 percent in 2022, reaching 42 percent in 2024.

Compared with 2024, Latino support for Republicans has fallen 7 percentage points this year. NBC News attributed the shift to growing dissatisfaction with Trump's governance among this demographic. Only 27 percent of Latino voters approve of how Trump is handling his job as president.

Respondents expressed the strongest opposition to Trump's handling of the cost of living — driven by high prices — at 78 percent, followed by economic policy at 74 percent. Opposition also ran high on immigration policy (69 percent) and foreign policy (68 percent). Even border security, the area where Trump received his best marks, drew more disapproval than approval, at 58 percent.

About two-thirds of respondents said the Trump administration has gone too far in enforcing immigration laws. Some 83 percent support deporting undocumented immigrants who have committed serious crimes, while only 37 percent support deporting all undocumented immigrants.

The shift in sentiment is expected to influence election outcomes in states with large Latino populations. According to Pew Research Center, Latinos make up 43 percent of voters in New Mexico, 33 percent in California, 32 percent in Texas, 25 percent in Arizona, 23 percent in Florida and 22 percent in Nevada.

Texas, traditionally a Republican stronghold, is considered a competitive battleground in the upcoming Senate race. Both Texas and Florida saw several new congressional districts with large Latino populations emerge from the 2024 elections. NBC News said the chances of those House seats flipping from Republican to Democrat have grown.

However, the Democratic Party itself did not fare well in the poll. Some 42 percent of Latino voters hold a negative view of the Democratic Party, up 4 percentage points from the 2024 presidential election. On the question of democratic socialism within the party, negative responses (41 percent) far outweighed positive ones (13 percent).

The poll was conducted from Sept. 21 to Sept. 28 among 800 registered Latino voters through a combination of telephone interviews and online surveys. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.


soho0902@heraldcorp.com