Latino Voters Revolt: Trump Faces Stunning Poll Collapse in Key States

Paul Riverbank, 11/18/2025Latino voters shift sharply away from Trump, reshaping crucial battlegrounds ahead of midterms.

The numbers tell a story, though if you squint, you might almost miss just how dramatic the turn has been. Not too long ago, Donald Trump could bank on at least a sliver of goodwill among Latino communities—particularly where economic optimism and strongman border rhetoric found an overlapping audience. But as autumn rolled in this year, pollsters started picking up on a different mood. Suddenly, immigration—ostensibly Trump’s signature issue—has become his Achilles’ heel with this group.

CNN’s Harry Enten, who has spent years eking meaning out of chloroformed Excel spreadsheets, put it bluntly this week: Trump is now “38 points underwater” on immigration among Latino voters. It’s not just a little dip, either—the bottom appears to have dropped out. Just as recently as last October, Trump trailed Kamala Harris by a slim two points on that measure. Now, there’s a near 40-point chasm.

This realignment isn’t confined to one poll or one state. Political observers are seeing a sharp drop in Trump’s overall standing, not just on immigration. Take the CBS News/YouGov numbers: back in February, the former president was only two points in the red. Fast-forward to late October, and the gap has swollen to 34 points—an astonishing swing in such a compressed timeline. “Whatever Donald Trump is doing in office, in the minds of Latinos, it is not working,” Enten remarked, sounding a bit like a doctor delivering a bad prognosis. “They have turned against him in massive, massive numbers.”

Nowhere has this shift been more tangible than in places like New Jersey’s Union City. There, where families greet neighbors in Spanish over corner-store coffee, Democrats pulled in numbers that, frankly, made seasoned operatives double-check their calculators. In a single cycle, Mikie Sherrill surged 52 points over Kamala Harris’s previous margin—those aren’t just headwinds; that’s a political gale. Across the river in Manassas Park, Virginia, Democrat Abigail Spanberger outperformed Harris’s 2024 numbers by 22 points.

Dig deeper, and you discover it wasn’t just persuasion at work; turnout among Latino voters spiked, giving an old, familiar engine of Democratic victories some much-needed fuel. The narrative has flipped: in 2024, Republicans boasted about narrowing the gap. Now, it’s the Democrats grinning, as familiar faces return to their column on the scorecard. “Latinos running away from Republicans,” as Enten put it, “running to the Democrats. A big reversion to the mean.”

But what’s really behind the numbers? Policies can shift minds overnight, and immigration is one of those issues where the personal and the political are often entwined. Trump’s latest approach seems to have struck a nerve—not just soft disapproval, but outright anger, at least if these polls are to be believed.

It’s hazardous to predict electoral futures based on a few months of data—political landscapes change rapidly, and memories can be shorter than strategists like to admit. Still, the implications here are hard to miss. If this slump holds, it could spell trouble for Republicans far outside the Northeast. Texas, in particular, looms large. Redistricting maneuvers that once looked like sophisticated chess are starting to look a bit like checkers, as Latino voters shift away. The prospect of hardened Democratic gains in what was presumed to be safe Republican territory is, if nothing else, enough to keep a few GOP operatives awake at night.

Republicans, no doubt, will respond with internal reviews and plenty of soul-searching. For now, though, the numbers loom large: Latino support for Trump is melting away, and both parties are making new calculations ahead of the midterms. If there’s any comfort for those trying to forecast the political weather, it’s that nothing in politics stays put for long. In the end, it’s still anyone’s guess where the winds will blow two years from now.

Something curious is happening out on the American campaign trail, and you can pretty much hear it in the nervous voices of campaign managers from coast to coast. The political weather vane—this time, it’s spinning not over the heartland or the suburbs, but in neighborhoods where conversations drift seamlessly from English to Spanish and back again. Latino voters, long considered something of a swing electorate in several states, have been making headlines for all the wrong reasons—at least, if you’re sitting in the Trump campaign’s headquarters.The numbers tell a story, though if you squint, you might almost miss just how dramatic the turn has been. Not too long ago, Donald Trump could bank on at least a sliver of goodwill among Latino communities—particularly where economic optimism and strongman border rhetoric found an overlapping audience. But as autumn rolled in this year, pollsters started picking up on a different mood. Suddenly, immigration—ostensibly Trump’s signature issue—has become his Achilles’ heel with this group.CNN’s Harry Enten, who has spent years eking meaning out of chloroformed Excel spreadsheets, put it bluntly this week: Trump is now “38 points underwater” on immigration among Latino voters. It’s not just a little dip, either—the bottom appears to have dropped out. Just as recently as last October, Trump trailed Kamala Harris by a slim two points on that measure. Now, there’s a near 40-point chasm.This realignment isn’t confined to one poll or one state. Political observers are seeing a sharp drop in Trump’s overall standing, not just on immigration. Take the CBS News/YouGov numbers: back in February, the former president was only two points in the red. Fast-forward to late October, and the gap has swollen to 34 points—an astonishing swing in such a compressed timeline. “Whatever Donald Trump is doing in office, in the minds of Latinos, it is not working,” Enten remarked, sounding a bit like a doctor delivering a bad prognosis. “They have turned against him in massive, massive numbers.”Nowhere has this shift been more tangible than in places like New Jersey’s Union City. There, where families greet neighbors in Spanish over corner-store coffee, Democrats pulled in numbers that, frankly, made seasoned operatives double-check their calculators. In a single cycle, Mikie Sherrill surged 52 points over Kamala Harris’s previous margin—those aren’t just headwinds; that’s a political gale. Across the river in Manassas Park, Virginia, Democrat Abigail Spanberger outperformed Harris’s 2024 numbers by 22 points.Dig deeper, and you discover it wasn’t just persuasion at work; turnout among Latino voters spiked, giving an old, familiar engine of Democratic victories some much-needed fuel. The narrative has flipped: in 2024, Republicans boasted about narrowing the gap. Now, it’s the Democrats grinning, as familiar faces return to their column on the scorecard. “Latinos running away from Republicans,” as Enten put it, “running to the Democrats. A big reversion to the mean.”But what’s really behind the numbers? Policies can shift minds overnight, and immigration is one of those issues where the personal and the political are often entwined. Trump’s latest approach seems to have struck a nerve—not just soft disapproval, but outright anger, at least if these polls are to be believed.It’s hazardous to predict electoral futures based on a few months of data—political landscapes change rapidly, and memories can be shorter than strategists like to admit. Still, the implications here are hard to miss. If this slump holds, it could spell trouble for Republicans far outside the Northeast. Texas, in particular, looms large. Redistricting maneuvers that once looked like sophisticated chess are starting to look a bit like checkers, as Latino voters shift away. The prospect of hardened Democratic gains in what was presumed to be safe Republican territory is, if nothing else, enough to keep a few GOP operatives awake at night.Republicans, no doubt, will respond with internal reviews and plenty of soul-searching. For now, though, the numbers loom large: Latino support for Trump is melting away, and both parties are making new calculations ahead of the midterms. If there’s any comfort for those trying to forecast the political weather, it’s that nothing in politics stays put for long. In the end, it’s still anyone’s guess where the winds will blow two years from now.