Texas Hispanic Poll Puts Trump Approval at 33%, Cook Political Report Shifts Six House Races Toward Democrats

Since the Cook Political Report and TelevisaUnivision released their Texas Hispanic voter poll and Cook shifted six House ratings toward Democrats on September 25, the numbers keep pointing the same direction: the Latino voters who powered Donald Trump's 2024 gains in Texas and Florida appear to be drifting back to Democrats five weeks before the midterms.

The poll, conducted August 26 to September 3 by Democratic pollster Hart Research and Republican pollster OnMessage Inc., found Trump's job approval among Texas Hispanic likely voters at 33%. That's a steep drop from 2024, when Trump carried Texas Hispanics by 10 points and Senator Ted Cruz won them by 3, according to Newsweek and New York Magazine, both of which cited the same underlying survey.

In the state's marquee races, Democratic state Representative James Talarico leads Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton 63% to 30% among Texas Hispanics, including 73% of self-identified independents, per the poll. Democratic state Representative Gina Hinojosa leads Governor Greg Abbott 60% to 33% with the same group. Abbott won 40% of Hispanics in 2022, so that's a real slide.

The erosion isn't just non-Trump voters staying non-Trump. Eighteen percent of Texas Hispanics who backed Trump in 2024 now disapprove of his performance. Nineteen percent of them say they support Talarico over Paxton. Twenty-two percent won't back a Republican on a generic House ballot. Sixty-one percent view ICE unfavorably, and nearly two-thirds say they're less likely to vote for a candidate who supports Trump's deportation policy, according to the same Cook/TelevisaUnivision poll reported by Newsweek.

Nate Cohn of the New York Times, cited by Vox's Astead Herndon and in an identical piece on Yahoo News, found Democrats leading Republicans among Hispanic likely voters nationally by 35 points on the generic congressional ballot, 64% to 29%. That's a 28-point swing from 2024, when Kamala Harris carried Hispanics by just 7 points. Just The News reported a similar 64-29 national polling average independently, tied to concerns that the shift could undercut the very redistricting maps Texas and Florida drew this year to lock in Republican House seats.

Research firm Equis, whose president Stephanie Valencia was interviewed by Vox, found Trump's net approval with Latinos on cost of living at negative 52 points, and on the economy at negative 45, both worse than his overall approval with the group at negative 31. By comparison, Equis put his numbers with non-Latinos at negative 39 on cost of living and negative 25 on the economy. Valencia's point: Latinos aren't a fixed bloc for either party. "We should be called the swinging giant," she told Vox, arguing that a third of Latino voters identify as independent or nonpartisan and decide elections on pocketbook terms, not ideology.

Cook Political Report acted on the data September 25, moving three Florida House races and three Texas House races toward Democrats, including Texas' 9th District, according to Newsweek. Just The News reported that roughly 13 districts across Texas and Florida, redrawn earlier this year specifically to protect Republicans, could become competitive if the Hispanic shift holds through November.

CNN's analysis of the broader House map notes Republicans are still targeting three dozen Democratic-held seats through the National Republican Congressional Committee, and 22 House Democrats are running in districts Trump carried in 2024, mostly in states where the GOP redrew lines this year. But CNN also points to history: in the five full-scale House wipeouts since 1982, including Reagan's 1982 midterms, Clinton's 1994, Obama's 2010, and Trump's own 2018, the president's party never flipped more than four seats held by the opposition. In 2006, under George W. Bush, Republicans flipped zero Democratic seats while getting wiped out themselves. If Trump's approval keeps sliding, the GOP's offense could stall even as its defense crumbles.

The fair pushback here is that this is one poll of Texas, co-conducted by a Democratic firm, sitting alongside a national average that some Republicans will argue overstates the shift the same way many pollsters underestimated Trump's actual 2024 Hispanic support. Mike Madrid, a Republican strategist and author of "The Latino Century," told Newsweek that both parties keep making the same mistake: assuming a single election cycle represents permanent realignment. "The Latino vote is the largest swing vote in America," Madrid said, not a bloc that locks in for either side.

The poll itself found Texas Hispanic voters still rank the economy as their top concern by roughly 2 to 1 over immigration, according to Newsweek. That leaves Republicans an opening if they can shift the conversation back to prices before ballots are cast.

No votes have been counted. The Cook and Equis numbers are polling snapshots taken in late August and September, five weeks before Election Day. The real test comes when Rio Grande Valley border counties like Starr, which flipped Republican for the first time since 1896 in 2024 according to CBS News, report actual results on November 3.