With President Donald Trump’s approval rating underwater by over seventeen points and the GOP facing criticism over inflation and the Iran war in a critical midterm election, we would expect swing voters to be flocking to Democrats. Despite inflation and the Iran war creating strong headwinds for Republicans leading into November, Latino voters are fleeing from the Democratic Party, showing a twenty-point collapse since 2022 and a thirty-point collapse since 2018.
In 2022, Democrat Congressional candidates won Hispanics 60 percent to 39 percent according to NBC News exit polls. In 2018, Democrats won a full 69 percent of Latinos and Republicans won 29 percent according to CNN exit polls.
Now, the latest surveys show Democrats will be lucky if they can achieve even 40 percent of the Latino vote in November just four years after they achieved 60 percent in 2022.
The latest Economist/YouGov survey from May 22-26 shows just 39 percent of Hispanics plan to support a Democrat for Congress. That is over a twenty-point decline for Democrats in four short years and a thirty-point decline in eight years.
In early January of this year the New York Times/Siena College survey of likely voters was already showing the beginning of a decline for Democrats among Latinos. The survey found 52 percent of Latinos planned to support a Democrat for Congress. Now, Democrats are down twenty points since 2022 and thirty since 2018.
Any brand, whether it is a political party or a household name, should be deeply troubled by such a strong loss of customer appeal. The YouGov tracker of 1,055-2,440 registered voters tracks the Democratic Party’s favorability over time.
Currently, the party’s favorability rating among Latinos sits at 45 percent. This is down fifteen points from 60 percent in Oct. 2024, just before the presidential election. In Oct. 2022, just before the midterm election cycle when Democrats won 60 percent of Hispanics, the party’s favorability was fifteen percentage points higher than it is today.
With the party’s approval rating in shambles and the lowest share of Latinos in modern history planning to support Congressional Democrats, it is worth looking into what the cause could be.
Standard midterm political logic suggests that in a midterm cycle with a Republican president balancing inflation concerns and an unpopular foreign conflict, swing voters should be poised to punish the president’s party in the midterm cycle. But instead, Latinos are punishing Democrats.
Republicans have lost some ground with Latinos too, but not nearly as much as Democrats. Historically, Republicans are holding up relatively well. The latest Economist/YouGov survey shows 26 percent of Latinos planning to support a Republican in November. This thirteen-point decline for Republicans compared to 2022 shows room for improvement. However, compare this number to the share of Latinos who supported Republicans in 2018, and it is nearly identical at 29 percent. The GOP is not bleeding losses, despite the double punch of inflation and the Iran war. The Democratic Party meanwhile has lost thirty percentage points in eight years.
Where have these voters gone? In the YouGov survey, one out of five Latinos say they won’t vote in the midterm election. In the Times survey of registered votes from January, twelve percent of Latinos said they would not vote.
A more recent New York Times/Siena College survey of weak Democrats sheds light on why Latinos are so disgruntled with the Democratic Party — and points to opportunities for conservatives.
The survey finds that Latinos more than any other voter bloc want to see the Democratic Party “move to the center” on a slate of issues — crime, immigration, healthcare, and transgender issues.
By thirty-six points, 51 percent to 15 percent, Latinos want to see the Democratic party move to the center overall. On immigration, specifically, Latinos want the party to move to the center by twenty-five points, 47 percent to 22 percent. On transgender issues, Democrats want to see the party move to the center by twenty-three points, 40 percent to 17 percent. By a massive forty-six points, Latinos want to see the Democrat Party move to the center on crime. Even on healthcare, Latinos want Democrats to move to the center by fourteen points.
Despite a Republican president suffering from persistent disapproval ratings due to inflation and the Iran war, Latinos do not appear to be planning a blue wave this November. Their support for Democrats is on track to be historically modest, and despite showing a lower level of support for Republicans compared to four years ago, the loss among Democrats has been significantly greater. Latinos want to see the Democrat Party move to the center by wide double-digit margins on major issues like crime, immigration, healthcare and social issues. But if Latinos want to move the Democratic Party to the right on nearly every issue, why even vote Democrat at all at some point? That seems to be the logical path some Latinos are taking.
Manzanita Miller is the senior political analyst at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
