The Latino vote encompasses tens of millions of Americans who have a broad range of backgrounds and ideologies; the fact that it is not a monolith has become something of a political cliche. But Donald Trump unmistakably made huge progress among the entire demographic in 2024. He won an estimated 48 percent of the Latino vote, according to Pew Research Center, up from 36 percent in 2020 and 28 percent in 2016. The cities and states that shifted most to the right in 2024 were those with large numbers of Latino voters, many of whom were deeply dissatisfied with the inflation that skyrocketed during Joe Biden’s presidency. Many also warmed to Trump’s hard line on immigration, in the aftermath of a historic border surge. And while some of these voters simply wanted a change in leadership, others embraced the MAGA movement in a way that sparked fear among Democrats that a key part of the electorate had fundamentally shifted.

Yet more than a year into Trump’s second term, his standing looks far less impressive. Multiple polls show that Trump’s approval rating among Latinos has sunk precipitously amid discontent over his stewardship of the economy and harsh deportation tactics. And elections over the last year have offered encouraging signs for Democrats that they may be repairing some of the damage in heavily Latino areas.

Jack Herrera is a freelance reporter who frequently writes about immigrant communities and the Southern border. I spoke with him after the 2024 election about the new Trump voters he had encountered, and I caught up with him again recently to get his thoughts on where those voters, and Latino voters more generally, stand now.

The last time I spoke with you, we discussed whether Latino voters’ shift to Trump represented a one-time change or something more seismic. Here’s part of what you said: “I do think that this is a political realignment by and large. My only caution is that it’s not as fundamental a shift as it looks like in the results, because if you take away inflation, I don’t think you see as big a shift this year as we saw.” 

A year and change into Trump’s term, inflation has slowed, but people are still pissed off about prices. And polling indicates Latino voters are basically where they were with Biden: largely unhappy about the economy, which overshadows everything else. Does that line up with what you have seen and heard on the ground?Yes, and I’ll add two bits of context. The first is that I think there is a significant percentage of the Latino electorate that will be mercenary in the next few years. If real wages don’t go up, they’ll punish the incumbent party. You can run against the incumbent’s economic record if the economy hasn’t improved — that’s a really workable strategy. Democrats have done that successfully in the special elections we’ve seen so far. The note of caution I’ll add is that in off-cycle elections — special elections especially, but also midterms — the percentage of Latinos who show up is really small. There are results that look really good for Democrats in places like New Jersey or in Tarrant County, Texas, but the sample size we’re talking about here is so small that I’d caution Democrats who want to see Latinos come back to Democrats and are like, okay, we’ve already won the fight.

Even if Democrats do well among Latinos in the midterms, you’re saying that there’s no more taking anything for granted. Yeah. The Latino Democratic voter was never as dependable as Democrats portrayed. This idea that there would be a 70 percent and maybe higher percentage of Latino voters who would always vote Democrat — a lot of that was wishful thinking. The Latino........

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