Hispanic Voters, Abandoning Trump, Are Transforming the Midterm Map

In an average of high-quality national polls over the last month, Democrats led Republicans among Hispanic likely voters by 35 percentage points, 64-29, on the generic congressional ballot, which asks voters which party they will support for Congress.

That would mark an extraordinary reversal since 2024, when the same pollsters found Kamala Harris leading Mr. Trump by an average of only seven points among Hispanic voters in their final surveys.

A shift toward Democrats on anything like this scale could remake the electoral map —threatening longtime Republican incumbents, new Republican gerrymanders and the party’s crown jewel, Texas — and represent a final unraveling of his winning 2024 coalition.

If one applied the demographic trends from recent Times/Siena national polls to districts across the country, Democratic gains among Hispanic voters would imperil Republicans in more than a dozen districts that Mr. Trump won by double digits but where Republicans depend on support from Hispanic voters. Texas and Florida would become ground zero for a possible Democratic tsunami, with the party’s chance at a large congressional majority potentially hinging on whether it could break through Republican gerrymanders in those states.

Source: 2024 presidential election results; 2026 estimates based on a New York Times/Siena national poll conducted Sept. 8 to 13. | By The New York Times

It’s important to caution that it’s challenging to precisely measure shifts among smaller groups like Hispanic voters. High-quality national polls have largely anticipated major swings among Hispanic voters in recent cycles, but they have not been perfect. With the polls showing Democrats gaining so much, even a modestly larger or smaller shift could be the difference between victory and defeat for Republicans in heavily Hispanic districts.

Nonetheless, the national, state and district polls leave no doubt that many Republicans in these districts are in jeopardy. The reason is simple: Mr. Trump.

His approval rating among Hispanic voters has fallen to the 20s, including just 26 percent in the most recent New York Times/Siena poll. Just two years after concerns about rising prices propelled him to victory, only 8 percent of Hispanic voters approved of his handling of the cost of living in the last Times/Siena poll, while 18 percent approved on the economy. His approval rating on immigration, at 26 percent, was not much better.

The polls have shown signs of growing Democratic strength among Hispanic voters all cycle, but it’s only over the last few weeks that the state and district-level polling has begun to confirm and reveal the extent of Democratic gains.

James Talarico has led every recent survey of the Texas Senate race, with polls showing him ahead among Hispanic voters by at least 20 points. Although his lead is often mostly dismissed as a reflection of the profound flaws of his Republican opponent, Ken Paxton, the polls also show the Democrat Gina Hinojosa to be surprisingly competitive in the race for governor against the incumbent, Greg Abbott, who leads by an average of three points in recent polls.

Perhaps even more striking than a poll result was a recent advertisement from María Elvira Salazar, who represents Florida’s 27th District, a heavily Cuban area in Miami-Dade County that voted for Mr. Trump by 15 points. She filmed a television ad in which she spoke directly to the camera — and to Mr. Trump — about how “the same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today.”

Early in the cycle, few analysts expected a competitive race for Texas governor or for a South Florida House seat. In both states, Republicans felt so secure in their success among Hispanic voters that they redrew their state’s congressional maps to try to gain as many as nine combined Republican seats. These aggressive gerrymanders were drawn in part on the assumption that the Republicans would retain at least some of Mr. Trump’s gains among Hispanic voters.

With Democrats surging back among Hispanic voters, many of the districts that Republicans hoped to flip might remain in the Democratic camp. At the same time, Republican-held seats that the party thought it might be able to take for granted could be in jeopardy.

In Texas, Democrats would be expected to lead on the generic congressional ballot in five Texas congressional districts where Mr. Trump won by at least 10 points in 2024 and to stay close in a sixth, based on the trends in Times/Siena national polling. In a sign that the G.O.P. itself doesn’t consider the races safe, Republican groups are spending in all six of these seats — which include four of the five districts Republicans thought they could flip with their new gerrymander.

Republicans in Florida might also be jeopardized by a Democratic surge among Hispanic voters, though it is worth cautioning that Democrats in Florida have underperformed national trends for a decade. Even so, gains among Hispanic voters ought to be sufficient for Democrats to be competitive in the state’s heavily Hispanic Republican-held districts in South Florida, including Ms. Salazar’s district. It could also help Democrats retain the districts with more modest but still substantial Hispanic populations that Republicans targeted in redistricting.

One important complication is financial: Florida and Texas are two of the nation’s most expensive states for ad campaigns. Republicans have a substantial financial advantage, and Florida and Texas might be exactly where it pays off, by allowing the party to defend congressional districts in expensive media markets that will be difficult for Democrats to match.

Either way, Democratic gains among Hispanic voters put Texas and Florida center stage. The Democratic Party’s chances of having a truly exceptional midterm election — one that yields a large congressional majority and control of the Senate — could depend on whether Democratic gains among Hispanic voters translate into breakthroughs in Texas and Florida.

If Democrats fall short, the surge of support among Hispanic voters will boost the party’s popular vote while doing relatively little to give Democrats the seats needed to control Congress. But if the breakthrough happens, it could essentially cancel out the G.O.P.’s gerrymanders in both states and give Democrats a long-awaited victory in Texas.