New Polls Show Hispanic Voters Swinging Hard Toward Democrats, GOP's Salazar Breaks With Trump on ICE Raids

Since Kamala Harris carried the national Hispanic vote by an average of just seven points in the final 2024 polls, the numbers have moved fast in the other direction. An average of high-quality national surveys compiled over the last month, cited by AllSides, now shows Democrats leading Republicans among Hispanic likely voters 64-29 on the generic congressional ballot, a 35-point swing.

A September New York Times/Siena University poll found more than 65% of Hispanic voters disapprove of Trump's job performance, and 78% said they'd rather see Democrats running Congress, according to reporting cited by The Guardian. A separate Fox News survey this month found 63% of Hispanic respondents plan to back the Democratic candidate in their district. An UnidosUS poll from April and May had already shown Democrats up 54-27 among Hispanic voters on the House ballot, suggesting the slide started well before September.

Cost of living and ICE enforcement top the list

Clarissa Martinez De Castro of UnidosUS's Latino Vote Initiative told The Guardian that cost of living ranks first when Hispanic voters explain their souring view of Trump, with immigration enforcement and deportations in U.S. cities second, and wages a close third. Longtime Latino-vote analyst Mike Madrid told the same outlet the shift isn't Democratic enthusiasm. "There's no renewed affinity or love for the Democratic party," Madrid said. "They're just extremely upset and disillusioned and angry, frankly, with Donald Trump."

The White House disputes the framing. Spokesperson Allison Schuster told The Guardian that "hard-working Hispanic Americans are beginning to have some breaking room" after what she called "four years of economic pain under the Democrats," pointing to the administration's middle-class tax cuts, no-tax-on-tips and overtime policies, and Trump's "record level of support from Hispanic Americans" in 2024.

A Trump-endorsed Republican breaks ranks

A sign of GOP concern came from Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida, whose Miami-area 27th District went for Trump by more than 14 points in 2024, according to Politico. In a campaign ad released this month and reported by both Breitbart and the Daily Wire, Salazar told the president directly: "Some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far. The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today."

Salazar cited government data showing 49,571 people were arrested by ICE in July, more than half with no prior criminal convictions or charges, a figure the Daily Wire noted does not count immigration violations themselves as a "criminal record." Salazar, who has Cuban heritage and has long pushed legislation granting legal status to some long-term undocumented immigrants who pass background checks, was careful to say she isn't calling for amnesty. "I'm talking about giving them a dignified life in this promised land," she said.

Trump endorsed Salazar's re-election bid in February. Her opponent, Democrat Eliott Rodriguez, commissioned a Bendixen & Amandi International poll in late August that found the two tied at 45% apiece once undecided voters were pushed to lean one way, according to the Daily Wire. That's a notably tight number in a district Trump won by double digits less than two years ago.

Democrats push the "ICE tax" message

Hours after Salazar's ad, members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus held a Capitol Hill news conference with the advocacy group America's Voice, framing mass deportation as an economic drag, Breitbart reported. Caucus chairman Adriano Espaillat called it an "ICE tax," arguing enforcement is pushing up costs in food, construction and health care. Texas Democrat Joaquin Castro said "ICE is killing the American economy" by pulling workers out of agriculture, construction and restaurants. California's Gil Cisneros put a number on it, saying labor shortages in his state have caused more than $3 billion in crop losses and higher produce prices.

Those are Democratic lawmakers' claims, not findings from an independent audit, and no government agency has published data confirming the $3 billion figure. The White House has not responded to the specific economic claims.

Hispanic voters in battleground districts

A Fox News Digital analysis found both parties may be making the same assumption: that Hispanic voters are locked in. Its data showed nine in 10 Hispanic voters in battleground districts rank cost of living as a top issue, 73% say they're surviving rather than getting ahead, and a Univision poll of Texas Hispanic voters found 69% think candidates simply don't pay enough attention to their community. Seventy-one percent said Spanish-language outreach matters to them.

That combination, an electorate paying close attention but feeling unheard, cuts against both a permanent-realignment story and a total-collapse story for either party. Salazar's race, and others like it in South Florida and South Texas, will be the first real test of whether the polling shift shows up in November's actual vote count rather than just survey responses.