Trump's Hispanic Voter Support Craters
in Latest Bad Sign for Texas Republicans
Capitol Inside
March 13, 2026
After the first sliver of good news in months with President Donald Trump's approval ratings holding steady for several days this week, the temporary respite ended on Friday for Texas Republicans with a headline in Newsweek on a new poll that shows his approval ratings among Hispanic voters collapsing.
Trump scored 45 percent of the Latino vote nationwide in 2024 when 55 percent of the Hispanics in Texas rallied behind him a third bid for the White House. Trump received 41 percent of the Hispanic vote in the Lone Star State in a losing race for the presidency in 2020 after securing a mere 34 percent in 2016 - according to CBS News this week. Trump had 32 percent support among Hispanics nationally four years ago compared to 28 percent in 2016.
Trump Plug for Texas Candidate
Draws Scrutiny in Israeli Media
Due to Interest in the Nazis
President Donald Trump's endorsement of Brandon Herrera failed to stop a shift of the Congressional District 23 seat to lean Democrat in the Capitol Inside ratings for the 2026 general election in Texas.
Trump pitched his support this week to the Republicans' default nominee for the seat that U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales is giving up after dropping out of a runoff with Herrera in the midst of allegations about an affair with an aide who committed suicide and attempts to pressure her before she died. Herrera led the incumbent by almost two point in the March 3 primary election with 43.3 percent of the CD 23 vote. Gonzales' personal troubles had been widely publicized before he pulled the plug on his campaign last week.
The Texas endorsement made headlines on Friday around the world - especially in major publications in the Mideast as a result of Herrera's well-publicized interest in the Nazis in Germany and Adoph Hitler in particular. The Times of Israel reported that the CD 23 contender who won the U.S. president's endorsement has discussed his copy of the Hitler manefesto Mein Kampf. The Jerusalem-based newspaper noted that the Republican Jewish Coalition opposes Hererra and won't be backing off the stance as a consequence of Trump's intervention in the Texas race.
Trump made the same exact claim in a Truth Social post on the Herrera plug that he'd made in December when he gave Gonzales his complete and total endorsement. “HE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!” the president promised voters in CD 23 in the endorsements for both candidates who advanced to overtime there. Trump put an exclamation mark on the statements supporting the runoff contenders there before and after the election last week when he typed both posts in capital letters exclusively.
“Brandon is strongly supported by many Highly Respected MAGA Warriors in Texas, and Republicans in the US House,” Trump declared in the social media message for Herrera.
Herrera's campaign manager contended that he'd earned the support of Jewish leaders for the U.S. House bid. But the Herrera campaign did not respond to requests from the Israeli media on the names of specific leaders from the Jewish community supporting his campaign.
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GOP leaders and lawmakers in Austin based projections for a five-seat gain on a new Texas congressional map on the assumption that Trump's support among Hispanic voters here 15 months ago represented a permanent political realignment with that critical bloc of the electorate here. With more than half of the Latinos who voted in 2024 on Trump's side of the ledger, the Republicans at the Texas Capitol targeted three U.S. House seats in districts that are heavily-Hispanic in South Texas and one in the Houston area with over twice as many residents who fit that description.
The belief that a majority of Hispanics would vote Republican again in 2026 appeared more delusional than ever today with the release of an Economist/YouGov poll that found Trump's approval rate among Hispanics across the U.S. at 28 percent compared to a 68 percent disapproval mark. The 40 point gap between the number of Hispanics who rate approve of the president and those who turn thumbs down represented a stunning 19-point swing against him in the course of one week - according to the Newsweek analysis of The Economist survey that was conducted after the Texas primary election from March 6 to March 9.
The free fall in Trump approval marks among Hispanic voters - especially at a time when his overall ratings had stabilized for the first time in the past few months - helps explain why Democrats had a record turnout in the Texas primary election on March 3 at the expense of the GOP. A considerable number of Hispanics who'd supported Trump here in 2024 flocked to Democratic State Rep. James Talarico in the U.S. Senate race at the polls last week.
Thanks in large part to his support among Latinos, the fourth-term lawmaker from the Texas Capitol City won 305,281 more votes in round one than U.S. Senator John Cornyn - a longtime legislator who's been a U.S. Senate member for almost two dozen years. Talarico scored 331,371 votes than Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton - a Republican Senate contender who's dueling Cornyn in a runoff after finishing one percentage point behind the incumbent last week.
The Texas primary - to the dismay of Governor Greg Abbott and the Republicans here - proved to be a showcase for a dramatic shift of Hispanics back to the Democrats' column after an extended honeymoon with Trump that GOP partisans mistook to be a long-term romance based on the congressional redistricting effort here last summer. .
Barring a sharp reverse in Hispanic preferences for the second midterm election under Trump in Texas, the Democrats have a shot to win two or three or even four of the congressional races in districts the Republicans in Austin thought they'd convert from blue to red this fall. U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar of Laredo and Vicente Gonzalez of Brownsville - a pair of Democrats who Abbott and the Republicans expected to eliminate in 2026 - appear to be solid favorites now for re-election in races now as a consequence of the exodus of Republicans from the GOP in and at the polls.
The Republicans here could be in store for major humiliation in the Texas general election in November if they pick up less than five congressional seats as planned at the same time California Democrats flip all five U.S. House districts they targeted on a map that lawmakers and voters there approved to counter the effort here. The Texas redistricting push - as a consequence - could be the singular or most glaring reason that the GOP loses the U.S. House majority in November if such an event transpires and the final tally is close.
But the Democrats in Texas could mitigate or more than offset potential losses in the congressional delegation with the flipping of seats in a state House chamber where they'd have the majority with a net-gain of 14 this fall. With Trump historically unpopular and showing no signs of changing simply for the sake of propping up Republicans on the ballot in 2026, the GOP is bracing here for a potential blue wave on par with the tidal wave that swept Democrats to a 12-seat gain in the Texas House in the first midterm election on his watch in 2018. Texas Democrats picked up two Texas Senate seats and two more in the U.S. House that year. Democrats have picked up more than two dozen legislative seats around the country in the past year
Trump's team appeared to be in denial on the exit of Hispanics from the GOP based on the latest polling. "President Trump was honored to receive a record level of support from Hispanic Americans that helped fuel his landslide 2024 election victory, and he’s spent every day since his inauguration working to make life better for them, and all Americans,”
White House spokesperson Allison Schuster said in response to the poll that YouGov conducted for The Economist.
more to come ...
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