Latino voters swing left in midterm elections, lifting Democrats to big wins in Texas and nationwide

SAN JUAN, Texas — Latino voters moved sharply to the left in the midterm elections, propelling Democrats to an improbable electoral sweep in Texas and in battleground House races from coast to coast.

It's a remarkable pivot for a demographic that had shifted toward President Donald Trump just two years ago.

“We showed our power and flexed our muscle during this election,” said Democratic Rep. Gabe Vasquez, who won his battleground district in New Mexico by around 17 percentage points after winning by less than 1 percentage point in 2022.

Democrats capitalized on voters' angst over rising prices and government corruption, riding a wave of frustration to retake control of the House and the Senate.

Hispanics joined in that decisive repudiation of Trump and his Republican Party. In Texas, every county voted more Democratic than it did two years ago, when Trump beat Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential race. But the more heavily Hispanic the county, generally the heavier the shift.

“This is our lightning-in-the-bottle moment, that we were able to make such historic gains that we probably never conjured, especially here in Texas,” said Johnny Garcia, a sheriff's deputy who won a newly created House district in the San Antonio area where Trump won by 10 percentage points in 2024. “The only way we did that is by going after the issues that were meaning the most to people.”

Republicans lost the gains Trump made with Hispanic voters in 2024

About one-third of Hispanic voters said they backed the Republican in their local U.S. House race, while roughly 4 in 10 voted for Trump two years ago.

The shift was especially pronounced in Texas, where voters flipped a Senate seat and the governor's office to Democrats along with every statewide office on the ballot.

Roughly 7 in 10 Hispanic voters supported Democrat James Talarico in the U.S. Senate contest, while only about 3 in 10 voted for Republican Ken Paxton. The group was essentially split in the 2024 presidential election, according to AP VoteCast, an extensive survey of voters and nonvoters that aims to tell the story behind election results.

Younger Hispanics’ shift was even more pronounced, with swings of around 20 percentage points toward Talarico among Hispanic voters in Texas under 65 years old.

Cindy Candia, a 56-year-old lifelong Democrat, was thrilled to see her party find success for the first time in her 20 years living in Texas. She was especially excited about the incoming governor, Gina Hinojosa, who grew up in the Rio Grande Valley, where Candia lives now.

“She’s a woman, she’s Hispanic, she is from Brownsville, and I don’t think anybody thought that Texas would vote for that, for that type of person,” Candia said.

Democrats won every House district that touches the U.S.-Mexico border — which includes seats in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California — for the first time since 2008.

Even in the Senate race in Florida, where Republican Sen. Ashley Moody managed to narrowly win reelection, less than half of Hispanic voters supported Moody, while Trump definitively won this group two years earlier with 55% of Hispanics’ support.

In southwestern Kansas, three Hispanic-majority counties that voted overwhelmingly for Trump flipped to backing Adam Hamilton, who became the first Democrat in nearly a century to win a U.S. Senate contest in the state. Turnout also surged 27% over 2022 in the three counties, Finney, Ford and Seward.

Fourteen Hispanic Democrats were newly elected on Tuesday, 10 of them in districts that are currently represented by Republicans or were redrawn to favor the GOP. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus will have more members than ever before, said Rep. Linda Sanchez of California, chair of the caucus' campaign arm, CHC BOLD PAC.

Latino voters want someone who is “understanding of their issues” to represent them on Capitol Hill, said Leticia Gutierrez, a Democrat who won a Houston-area House district that Texas Republicans redrew in a failed attempt to pick up five more seats in the state.

“I’m gonna carry all of those things with me to Washington to be able to have that lens,” Gutierrez said.

Manny Rutinel, a Democrat who defeated Republican Rep. Gabe Evans in Colorado, said voters responded to his life story, trusting that he understands their economic concerns after growing up in a family that sometimes struggled to make ends meet.

“I think that they elected me because they know that for me it’s deeply personal,” Rutinel said.

Democrats can't take Latino voters for granted

In House districts where at least a quarter of the citizen voting-age population is Hispanic, the Democratic share in Tuesday’s midterms averaged about 11 percentage points higher than Harris' 2024 performance. By contrast, other House districts saw a 7-percentage-point gain on average.

In majority-Hispanic counties, Democratic Senate candidates exceeded their party's 2024 results by more than 15 percentage points.

Latinos have been especially affected by Trump's immigration crackdown, which was a prominent issue alongside economic concerns in some of the most heavily Latino districts.

Though Trump's promise to arrest and deport immigrants living in the country illegally was popular during his campaign, Americans now disapprove of his approach to immigration enforcement.

“Everybody voted for him, but the people that voted for him, he’s locking them up," said Elton Reid, a 44-year-old Latino voter and full-time caregiver for his father in Allentown, Pennsylvania. “Like he promised them the world, and he didn’t come through with it, and now he’s locking them up.”

Reid voted for Democrats in his battleground district, where Democrat Bob Brooks defeated Republican Rep. Ryan McKenzie.

Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk, a Latino Democrat, warned that the shift toward Democrats hinges on the party keeping campaign pledges.

“They saw betrayal from Trump after they gave him a chance in 2024,” Tuerk said. “And they went with the Democrats, and they’re giving them a chance now.”

“But," he added, "they’re on probation.”

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Catalini and Cooper reported from Washington. Associated Press journalists Linley Sanders, Aaron Kessler and Humeri Lodhi in Washington; John Hanna in Topeka, Kan.; Erik Verduzco in York, S.C.; Fabianna Rincon in New York; and Tassanee Vejpongsa in Allentown, Pa., contributed.