The November elections in New Jersey, Virginia, New York, and California were a significant win for Democrats in the wake of the 2024 losses, and represented a shift in Latino voting back towards their historic norms and away from President Trump and the GOP. In New Jersey, the shift wiped away the GOP drift that had been occurring over the last 5+ years.

We were not surprised. On the day before the election, BSP Research—in partnership with GOP pollster Shaw and Company—released a non-partisan national poll of Latinos for Unidos US, the nation’s leading Hispanic civic organization. Our poll, which was collected Oct 8-22 identified a substantial and growing shift away from President Trump and the GOP.

These findings extend a trend beginning with our poll after the first 100 days. Latino disenchantment did not begin this fall but, rather, happened early in the administration and has only accelerated over time. At the 100-day mark, our non-partisan poll (also with Shaw) also showed a substantial bleed. In the 100-day poll, only 82 percent of Trump voters expressed an expectation to repeat their vote (20 % probably but uncertain), while 18% would not say they would select him again (9%) or would not answer the question (9%). By October, only 78% would stick with Trump (20% probably), while defections had grown to 22%. There is little comparable slippage among voters who told us they voted for Harris.

Voter approval of Trump and the GOP in Congress was similarly underwater at 100 Days and got even worse by the time we got to the fall. At 100 days, approval of President Trump among Latino voters had dropped to 37%, compared with 59% disapproval. Trump was characteristically outperforming his colleagues in Congress, where GOP approval was 35% against an identical 59% disapproval.

Fast forward to October. Trump approval at this point has cratered to 31% while disapproval has climbed to 64%. GOP members in the house had only 30% approval but an every-so-slightly lower disapproval at 62%.

ECONOMIC EVALUATIONS

Conventional wisdom has coalesced around the idea that Democratic losses in 2024 were largely attributed to economic discontent, and Latinos were no exception. So the perceived performance on the new administration on economic matters is likely to have an outsized effect on evaluations of their performance.

In both April and October, we asked respondents to tell us whether their personal economic situation was better or worse than a year before, and whether they expected Trump’s economic policies would make things better or worse in the coming year. The results importantly underpin the loss of support on the GOP side.

Already by April, just 100 days into the new administration, Latinos had substantially soured on the Trump approach to the economy. They already felt they were worse off and by a 21-point margin, expected things to get worse rather than better. By October, the economic evaluations had become dire for Trump and the GOP. By a 25-point margin, Latino voters felt worse off economically, and by a 30-point margin, expected even worse results in the coming year. It is difficult to imagine that these economic evaluations will improve with the sunsetting of ACA subsidies, the slowing of the job market, and the weakening of economic growth.

All of which is to say that the much-heralded shift to the left in the 2025 off-year elections, back to the historical norm for Latino voters’ two-party views, was apparent as early as April of this year, is worsening, and is closely associated with views of the economy under the current administration.