Just a handful of months ago President Donald Trump was a boon to the Republican Party regarding the Hispanic vote, but nobody turns things around like Trump.While Latinos are no monolithic voting bloc, columnist Gustavo Arellano tells the LA Times that few people could watch images of immigration agents “running into a day care facility in Chicago’s Roscoe Village neighborhood to pull out a teacher” and not get angry.“Armed agents have sauntered through downtown and manned a flotilla of boats on the Chicago River,” Arellano said. “They shot and killed a fleeing immigrant and raided an apartment building with the help of a Black Hawk helicopter. In nearby Broadview, home to the region’s main ICE detention facility, rooftop migra shot pepper balls at protesters below, including a pastor. They even tear-gassed a neighborhood that was about to host a Halloween children’s parade, for chrissakes.”In New Jersey, where Trump received 46 percent of the Latino vote in 2024, Arellano said just 31 percent of Latinos sided with the losing GOP candidate for governor. Nearly two-thirds of Latinos in Virginia also turned on Cuban American Atty. General Jason Miyares, the losing Republican in that race. The CNN poll also found that more than 70 percent of California Latinos voted for the pro-Democrat Proposition 50, a year after GOP Latino legislators made historic gains in Sacramento.“At the same time, support for Trump has dropped among Latinos. Only 25 percent of Latinos surveyed in October by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research viewed Trump favorably — a cratering from the 45 percent who liked him in April. Even more telling, two-thirds of Latino men thought negatively of Trump — despite 51 percent of that demographic choosing him in 2024.The opposition is not all about ICE goons tramping into schools and libraries and snatching mothers and family members, however.LA Times’ reporters Ana Ceballos and Andrea Castillo say Trump’s historic gains with Latinos last year boosted Republicans’ confidence that their economic message was helping them make inroads with the group. “But polling shows that a majority of Latino voters now disapprove of how Trump and the Republicans in control of Congress are handling the economy,” said Ceballos and Castillo. “Half of Latinos said they expected Trump’s economic policies to leave them worse off a year from now in a Unidos poll released last week.”“Now, I look at Trump different,” New Jersey voter Rumaldo Gomez told MSNBC. “The economy does not look good.”While Latino voters fear being affected by immigration enforcement actions, the Unidos poll showed they are more concerned about cost of living, jobs and housing, with immigration ranking fifth on the list of concerns.In New Jersey and Virginia, Ceballos and Castillo said Democrats’ double-digit victories were built on promises to reduce the cost of living, while blaming Trump for their economic pain. Democratic National Committee spokesman Marcus c told the LA Times that Democrats “expanded margins and flipped key counties by earning back Latino voters who know Trump’s economy leaves them behind.”“These results show that Latino communities want progress, not a return to chaos and broken promises,” said Robinson.But the economy “remains stagnant,” said Arellano. “Trump effectively declared war on Latin America with tariffs real and threatened and by bombing Venezuelan and Colombian boats suspected of carrying drugs without asking permission from Congress. Trump officials keep issuing punitive policies that crush the dreams of Latinos, like a crackdown on English fluency in the trucking industry and ending federal grants that helped colleges and universities recruit and retain Latino students.”“Nationwide, we’re warning everyone from the front lines — the streets, the ballot box, the courtroom, everywhere — about the excesses of Trump and warning him what happens if he doesn’t listen,” Arellano said.Catch both LA Times reports here and here.
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