Latino voters overwhelmingly supported Democratic candidates in Tuesday’s elections, largely reversing historic gains President Trump made in 2024 with this key demographic.
Mr. Trump was a factor for voters generally, across Virginia, New Jersey, and California, according to CBS News exit polls — many said they voted in these races to oppose him.
In New Jersey, 68% of Latino voters supported Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mikie Sherrill, helping her defeat Republican Jack Ciattarelli, who was endorsed by Mr. Trump. Sherrill carried Latino men and women alike, and even flipped 18% of Latino Trump voters.
Every New Jersey county voted more Democratic than in the 2024 presidential election. And Democrats swept the 10 counties where Latinos make up at least 20% of the population, expanding on their 2024 margins and flipping counties that Mr. Trump won in 2024.
In 2024, Mr. Trump made significant inroads in heavily Latino cities like Passaic with a 70% Latino population. He increased his vote margin by over 30 points and flipped the county, becoming the first Republican to win the presidential vote there in over 30 years.
This year, these communities swung hard the other way, reversing Republican gains. Passaic flipped back to the Democratic column, giving Sherrill the same vote share Joe Biden enjoyed there in 2020. And in both Paterson and heavily Latino Prospect Park, Sherrill did even better.
“The thing that stands out the most to me is the amount of swing from Republican to Democrat in just one year,” said Chuck Rocha a Democratic political strategist and CBS News contributor. “We saw the swing of Latinos to the right slowly, progressively over the last 10 to 12 years, but on Tuesday night it was a real snapback — almost back to pre-Trump numbers of Latino performances for Democrats.”
In 2024, Mr. Trump received a higher percentage of the Latino vote than any other Republican presidential candidate in history. He won 46% of the Latino vote, coming very close to former Vice President Kamala Harris’ vote share of 51%, according to CBS News exit polling. This was a dramatic improvement from Mr. Trump’s showing of 28% in 2016.
A precinct-level analysis of Passaic County reveals the types of places that shifted dramatically. About 16% of the county’s precincts flipped from backing Mr. Trump last year to Sherrill this year, with no flips in the other direction.
Moreover, it was areas with larger Latino populations that saw the biggest swings left. While some Latino Trump voters switched to vote Democratic this year, these shifts are also due to changes in turnout. Places with more Latinos saw greater churn in the electorate: that is, more of their 2024 voters skipped voting this year, and many of them were replaced with new voters who didn’t vote last year (according to voter file data on this year’s advance voters).
Across the three cities mentioned above, along with Clifton, wards with more Latino residents both saw more churn and shifted more toward Democrats. Taken together, these data points and CBS News exit polling suggest that many of Trump’s Latino voters stayed home, while others switched sides, and new voters broke heavily Democratic.
In Virginia, Hispanic voters also swung for Democratic Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger, who won 67% of their vote across the state. Mr. Trump made large gains in Manassas and Manassas Park in 2024, which are more than 40% Latino. In 2025, these two areas turned out for Spanberger.
“Certainly with the Latino community, economic issues, kitchen table issues, are always front of mind and always center in the decisions they’re making,” said Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin of the appeal of Democratic candidates to Latinos. “You add on top of that, the fact that for many parts of this country, the Latino community has been terrorized with these mass thugs from ICE going out and indiscriminately pulling Latino from their cars.”
According to CBS News exit polls, 65% of Virginia Latino voters disapprove of Mr. Trump, with the economy ranking as their highest priority.
In New Jersey, 57% of Latino voters disapprove of Mr. Trump, and 53% feel the economy is not in good shape. On immigration, six in 10 Latinos feel the president’s immigration actions have gone too far, and a similar number say the state’s next governor should not cooperate with him.
“I predicted this was going to happen once the economy did not improve and once they started not deportation — but once they started deportations of non-criminal aliens and racial profiling — that there was gonna be a snapback,” said Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona, who campaigned for both Spanberger and Sherrill.
“It’s the same thing I saw in Arizona once there was racial profiling with Sheriff Joe Arpaio. You saw a mass mobilization of Latinos going out to not just protect themselves or protect their families,” Gallego told CBS News, making reference to the former Maricopa County sheriff and anti-immigration hardliner. In 2024, Gallego won his U.S. Senate race, becoming Arizona’s first Latino senator, as Mr. Trump won the state that year, largely on the strength of his outsized support from Latino male voters.
In a recent UnidosUS bipartisan survey, 41% said they feared they or someone close to them might be arrested by federal immigration agents, despite having legal status.
“Unfortunately Latinos are leaving the Republican party after giving us a monumental chance in 2024,” GOP Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar said in a video posted on X after Tuesday’s elections. She called the results “a wake up call” for the Republicans.
“I’ve said it before, the Hispanic vote is not guaranteed: Hispanics married President Trump, but they’re only dating the GOP,” Salazar said.
The president said Wednesday, “I don’t think it was good for Republicans,” regarding the election results. “If you read the pollsters, the shutdown was a big factor, negative for the Republicans.”
The 2025 races garnered national attention as an early test of voter sentiment about Mr. Trump’s second term and the ability of Democrats to counter Republicans ahead of the next year’s pivotal midterm elections.
Republicans have engaged in mid-decade redistricting in Texas, Missouri and North Carolina, at the behest of Mr. Trump, trying to boost GOP chances of winning seats and retain control over the House of Representatives.
In Texas, Republicans redrew five Democratic congressional districts — including two in South Texas that will be competitive in 2026. Former Republican Rep. Mayra Flores is running for one of the newly drawn seats, Congressional District 34, and says she hopes to compound Mr. Trump’s 2024 historic gains.
In a phone interview, she praised Mr. Trump’s second term, but said, “Our focus needs to continue on bringing down the cost of living and improving the economy because the American people are struggling to live.”
Flores says Latino voters in South Texas largely supported Mr. Trump in 2024 because they wanted more border security, and she believes the GOP will be able to hold onto their votes next year.
In the 2025 fiscal year, which just ended in September, unlawful crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border plummeted to the lowest annual level since the early 1970s, as a result of the Trump administration’s sweeping crackdown on illegal immigration.
“We see firsthand what it looks like not to have law and order, and that is why Hispanics voted for President Trump,” Flores said. “We wanted law and order and continue to want law and order now more than ever.”