'Swinging Giant': Hispanic voters went hard left in Texas and Florida

USA Today · , USA TODAY · 2026-11-04 23:45 UTC

Fed up with the economy and immigration policies, Latino voters who once helped return Donald Trump to the White House swung back toward Democrats.

Two years after Latino voters helped Donald Trump return to the White House, they swung back toward Democrats in a major midterm upset in the Texas governor’s and congressional races that also left two longtime Miami Republicans in contests too close to call.

The economy and the cost of living drove much of the shift, strategists on both sides of the aisle said. But they also point to immigration and President Donald Trump's enforcement campaign that reached deep into Latino neighborhoods over the past year.

Those political factors weighed heavily on Latino voters in Texas and Florida. Large swaths of voters along the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas are multi-generation and of mixed-status families, many of whom are stuck in limbo due to the long and expensive immigration process.

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