The Latino Vote in Texas

One of the great mysteries of politics is how national Republicans came to believe that the Latino vote that moved hard to them in 2024 was permanent. I mean, there are ways to make things permanent, I grant you that. Voting coalitions do change over the longer term, as we have seen in states that used to be solid for one party and are now solid for the other party (Virginia and New Mexico for Democrats, Iowa and Ohio for Republicans). But what seems less likely to work is that you win gains among that population and then engage in a widespread ethnic cleansing campaign that not only targets people here “illegally” but has clear desires to evict even permanent residents and citizens, tearing apart families, and using violence to do so. Add to that the fact that the low-information voters who thought Trump was going to bring back some beautiful economy haven’t exactly found that to be true and you have a perfect storm for Republicans to start getting upset in some pretty major ways, such as that Texas senate district in Fort Worth. And note as well, Texas senate districts are actually larger than congressional districts so this covering a lot of ground.

Democrat Taylor Rehmet’s recent upset victory over a MAGA star to represent a reliably red Texas Senate district was, at least in part, due to a significant leftward shift by Latino voters. These maps help illustrate the point.

Precincts in Senate District 9 with a majority of Hispanic residents swung on average 34 percentage points toward Rehmet compared to the margin garnered by the Democratic nominee in 2022, when the seat was last on the ballot.

Across the entire district, VoteHub estimated that Rehmet captured about 79% of the Hispanic vote, a 26-point improvement on the 53% that went for Democrat Kamala Harris in 2024 — the biggest shift of any racial group in the district.

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It remains early to detect what the results suggest for November’s midterm elections, if anything. But they present a fresh reminder of the significance of the Latino vote in Texas — and beyond — and the political danger for down-ballot Republicans if they see their support erode among the state’s growing Latino voting bloc.

Following Trump’s 2024 victory — in which exit polls showed him capturing 55% of Texas’ Latino vote — much of the attention centered on the state’s historically Democratic and heavily Latino border counties. Trump won 14 out of the 18 Texas counties within 20 miles of the border, including all four in the Rio Grande Valley.

Less-documented, however, has been the inroads made by Trump and the Texas GOP with Latinos — who account for the largest share of the state’s population — in the state’s largest metro areas. The special election in Senate District 9, which covers about half of Fort Worth and many of its surrounding suburbs complicates the narrative some more, suggesting a contraction back toward Democrats among Latino voters.

Now, one huge mistake Democrats made in the first quarter of this century was a “demography is destiny” assumption that clearly proved untrue. You have to win every voter every election. But it’s not as if Republicans have learned anything either. They just assumed everyone was down for Stephen Miller’s concentration camps and, well, they aren’t.