Battleground states: where Latino votes could matter most

From Texas and Arizona to Florida and Pennsylvania, Latino voters make up a substantial share of the electorate in competitive congressional districts. In 2024, President Donald Trump gained historic ground among Latino voters, but now that support seems to be declining. With Democrats holding a reported 30-point advantage in the latest New York Times-Siena poll, their support could have a significant impact on these 2026 midterm elections to expand on that Latino voter shift, we welcome Andres Quintero the political science professor at Evergreen Valley College in San Jose, professor thank you so much for joining us this morning, thank you for having me, so I I see we have with the latest numbers about 32.8 million registered voters who identify as Hispanic or Latino in the United States across the country here we often associate them with the Democratic vote or the Democrat candidate, but we know that can certainly change and sway elections based on what we saw in the presidential election in the last two years. What do you expect this time around with the midterms? Well, you know, and that's an easy assumption given the fact that a decade ago we had support nearly 70% for the Democrats from the Latino community. Obviously things have shifted and there's been things that have taken place and so in the last election you saw a shift, a significant shift um that more we had to do with the economy that's what the the analysis have demonstrated um right now we see this heavy-handed uh immigration unfortunately by the administration that has uh really uh caught the attention of the Latino community, just in one month you've seen a shift but what's important for the Latino community and immigration is 20 so that uh definitely should be a wake-up call for those folks who uh from the Republican party in particular that are uh leaning very heavy on immigration. A lot of conversations about immigration enforcement, immigration policies that the Trump administration has been pushing, and that has gotten a lot of pushback from Latino communities. There was also what we saw in Venezuela when the Trump administration went in and took over, essentially, and released the control from President Nicolas Maduro. I remember that receiving quite a bit of a mixed reaction from a lot of Central American and South American Latinos. Do you think news like that the politics of things outside of immigration policies will shape some of these voters in any certain way. I think it obviously has an effect, especially for those folks who are coming from those countries who see this as essentially possibly a betrayal. So all of that packets together, along with the more important issues such as the economy. Every time somebody goes to the pump, they're reminded that they expected to have a better life, you know, more resources. And instead, the inflation is cutting away at any gains that they had even made before. So I think those, as a package, it's more likely having that effect towards possibly another candidate or another party. Professor, I want to ask you a question based off some data that I'm reading from the Pew Research Center. They surveyed a number of registered Latino voters in the U.S., both who support Democratic candidates and who support Republican candidates. When they were asked if this election really matters, if this election, if it matters which party wins, and if they've given a lot of thought about this election. Voters who identify with Democratic candidates, that interest has gone up double digits since October of 2022 when surveyed this last month. Voters who sway with the Republican side, that interest has gone down almost to the same degree. How do you interpret those numbers? It aligns with everything that we're seeing. the increase in the support, particularly for the Democratic Party, for Latinos for the Democratic Party. Those figures should be clearly, they align very well with what we're seeing in multiple institutions. And once again, I think the highest point here goes back to the economy and folks saying that essentially they don't trust the Republican Party to handle the economy properly. Same goes for immigration. What Republican policies usually do work well with Latino voters? The Republican Party went ahead and presented themselves as being stronger in the economy. The promises, word for word, were you're going to have more money, you're going to lower prices. That obviously did not come to fruition. And I think that voters are able to see that now and they're responding in the way that they are by saying that they're going to change the party that promised them those things. All right, we got one week left until we see the result of these midterm elections. Andres Quintero with political science professor at Evergreen Valley College. Thanks so much for taking the time with us this morning. Thank you for having me here.