The power of Latinas’ Trump regret could swing this election

RIO GRANDE CITY, Texas — When Cynthia Villareal voted for President Donald Trump in 2024, she did so trusting his campaign promises of lower gas prices, border security and “assistance for the people — for the middle class.”

The 43-year-old mother of four turned out for Trump alongside a sizable majority of voters in heavily Latino Starr County, which hugs the border with Mexico and had reliably turned out for Democratic candidates for five generations.

Less than two years later, Villareal said the promise of her vote never materialized. “He said gas prices were gonna go down. They haven’t — they haven’t at all,” said Villareal, who drives around the Rio Grande Valley for her job supervising home health aides and feels every little surge. Villareal manages workers in a shortstaffed, tough profession where wages have simply not kept up with the cost of living. Many of her best workers, she said, are immigrants without permanent legal status experiencing the brunt of Trump’s immigration agenda. 

“I mean, he didn’t mention that these ICE agents were just going to be picking up all of these hardworking employees, you know, that have no backgrounds,” Villareal said, referring to immigrants without a criminal record. “They’re leaving people without their family, basically, and then some of the people are even dying in there,” she said of immigration detention. “Like, who knows what they’re doing to these poor people?”

For Villareal, life is more expensive, and her job harder. “It’s just too much.” 

Latina voters’ rightward shift was a crucial part of Trump’s reelection in 2024, and while more Latino men backed the president, Latinas actually made larger strides to the right in the last four presidential cycles. 

Ahead of the midterms, Latinas are also registering higher levels of regret when thinking about their support for Trump, a dynamic that may decide the outcome of competitive races from Texas to Florida and beyond. 

Voters like Villareal shed light on how Trump regret among this swingy and powerful group of voters — Latinas vote at higher rates than Latino men — may be the swell that breaks into a blue wave for Democrats this November. 

“I do think the narrative of this election could be that Latina women, in particular, help decide who is in control of the House of Representatives and the balance of government. And I say that because of the shifts we’ve seen over time and the shifts back that we are seeing now among Latina women in particular,” said Stephanie Valencia, who studies Latino voters at Equis Research.

Latinos’ political power this cycle is spread across the midterms map. Latinos make up at least 15 percent of the population in six of the 17 most competitive congressional districts, as well as in 29 other districts considered broadly competitive, mostly in the Southwest, California and Florida. Latino voters could be the deciders in competitive races for the U.S. Senate in Texas and Florida. Also in Texas, Latinos could swing the most competitive governor’s race the state has seen in years and, in doing so, elect the first Latina to the state’s top job. 

“Trump appealed to their pocketbooks and people were suffering here. I also think people were tired. We’ve been Democratic for over 100 years — why don’t we try something different?” said Cecilia Hernández, who founded the local political group Somos STARR this year in response to the big swings to the right she’s seen in her community. 

In an interview at the office of her family’s trash collection business, Hernández said voters’ views are shifting this cycle. 

“I think along with everything that’s happening with immigration and with the cost of living today, what I’ve been receiving a lot is, ‘I’m in the middle,’” Hernández said. “They don’t want to be seen as far right, and they don’t want to be seen as far left, either.”

Latinas stand out in just how much they are feeling the burn of rising costs. They report higher levels of financial stress and are less optimistic about the national economy, according to multiple surveys of Latino voters conducted over the past year. 

An expansive survey of Latinos conducted in the spring and sponsored by UnidosUS, a Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization, found that Latinas are more likely than Latino men to say that they have trouble meeting expenses — 23 percent of women vs. 17 percent of men. Men are much more likely to say they can meet their expenses and even have a little left over.

Thirty-eight percent of Latinas voted for Trump in 2024, versus half of Latino men, according to one high-quality analysis, driven by high costs and lack of confidence in the party in power on the economy. The UnidosUS survey of 3,000 Latino voters found that almost a third of Latinas who voted for Trump had regrets about their vote —  seven points more than Latino men. 

Regret is most striking among young Latinas: 42 percent said they would not vote for him again, a 12-point gap with young Latino men. Latina voters are more likely to register and turn out to vote, and with Latino voters skewing younger, young Latinas wield outsize political power. 

“Latina women have a large gender pay gap. We also have higher unemployment. We also generally have the responsibility of going to the supermarket and paying the grocery bills and understanding that eggs and and everything else is more expensive,” said Katharine Pichardo, the president and CEO of the Latino Victory Project, which backs progressive Democrats. Latinas are more likely to be closely involved in their kids’ education and doctors’ appointments, a frontline view on rising costs that Pichardo said shaped how they voted in 2024 and their views on that vote now. 

Melissa Morales, the president of Somos Votantes, which does political outreach to Latinos on behalf of Democratic candidates, said Latinas started peeling away from Trump almost immediately in his second term, while Latino men started shifting in the latter part of 2025. 

While Latinos, like voters overall, broadly rank the cost of living as their top issue, the disparate impact of the administration’s immigration policies on Latino communities is also registering among Latino voters. 

A New York Times/Siena poll conducted in mid October found that only a third of Hispanic voters approve of the administration’s handling of immigration. UnidosUS’ survey found significant gender gaps between Latino men and women. While both groups rank the importance of the issue about the same, Latinas were more likely to oppose policies like ending birthright citizenship and more funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Latinas were also more likely to support banning ICE from sensitive locations like schools and hospitals and to support requiring warrants for enforcement at home or in a workplace. 

Some of the most dramatic shifts toward Trump and Republicans in 2024 were logged in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, where Villareal lives. A string of counties in this part of Texas saw double-digit shifts in Trump’s favor compared with the 2020 election, after significant shifts to the right from 2016 to 2020. 

Latina voters in the Rio Grande Valley and around Texas will have a big impact on the Texas governor’s race, where Democrat Gina Hinojosa is locked in a dead heat with three-term Gov. Greg Abbott. Hinojosa describes herself as a populist who will tackle corruption and undue influence in government, which she ties to rising costs, weakened public schools and more. 

Hinojosa rarely acknowledges the history-making potential of her campaign as a Latina in a state that has never elected a Latino to the governor’s mansion. She instead nods to it by saying that she’d be the first governor from the Rio Grande Valley, which for Texans may as well mean the same thing. 

Hinojosa, who is bilingual, flexes her Spanglish easily on the stump, telling voters that the most important lesson she ever got came from her mother was the scolding, “No te dejes.” It doesn’t have a direct translation in English. 

“The best thing I can come up with is, ‘Know your worth and defend it,’” Hinojosa said in an interview. Asked if the Spanish phrase was connecting with voters, Hinojosa said, “for sure with Latinos, and 1,000 percent with Latinas.” 

“I’ve learned on the campaign trail that this is a saying that is mostly passed down through the women in the family,” she added. “And I think it’s because of this knowledge that women have for their daughters, grandmothers have for their granddaughters, that the world is tough, and we have to be strong.” 

At campaign events in the Rio Grande Valley in September, several voters cited Hinojosa’s identity and approach to politics as a motivating factor. 

Juanita Vallejo, 40, of Edinburg, Texas, said she sees Hinojosa as an “empowered woman,” and likes her firm stances in support of public schools and curtailing data centers. 

“I don’t want to say it this way, but I’m going to say it — she wouldn’t kiss ass to Trump. I think she would stand up to what is right,” said Rosie Hernandez, 56 of McAllen. 

Hinojosa is one of the breakout candidates of the cycle, but she has had to plead for funding from national Democrats hesitant to spend in Texas. Earlier this month, a group of influential Latinos in Democratic political circles put pressure on Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who chairs the Democratic Governors Association (DGA), to invest $10 million in the Texas governor’s race. The DGA decided to send $1 million.

Valencia, who signed onto the letter, said Democrats’ investment in Hinojosa’s race has larger implications for the party and sends a message to Latinos. “She’s a once-in-a-generation candidate from a state that is disproportionately Latino that has been the unicorn that Democrats have chased for decades,” Valencia said. 

“To have such a young, dynamic, charismatic Latina candidate in this environment and to not back her is a statement in and of itself, and it says a lot about how certain national Democrats feel about Texas and how they feel about certain candidates.” 

Hinojosa’s ability to build enthusiasm for her campaign after starting out with a low profile as a state legislator from Austin could bode well for one the biggest challenges when it comes to Latino voters: turning them out. 

Latinos had the lowest turnout rates among the major racial and ethnic groups at 51 percent, compared with 71 percent among White voters and 60 percent among Black voters. Nearly 6 million eligible Latinas did not vote in 2024.

During a town hall in Houston with a local Latino influencer this month, Hinojosa mused about the event likely being the first time a candidate for governor hosts an event in Spanish. Before Hinojosa arrived on stage, the host ushered to the microphone a woman who identified herself as a 46-year-old Houston native who had never voted before. Holding a white and orange slip, she said she had registered to vote earlier that day. “Quiero cambio,” she said to cheers. “No more Trump.” 

As both parties look ahead to the 2028 presidential election, they’ll have to contend with the fact that the Latino vote is a swing vote. Whatever gains Democrats make this cycle, they have a lot of ground to make up — especially with Latinas.

Nine days out from Election Day, Villareal said she is planning to vote for Democrats up and down the ballot. She described her vote this time as against Republicans — a register of regret — rather than about enthusiasm for the Democrats on the ticket. 

“We have to trust somebody. We have to vote for somebody no matter what,” Villareal said. 

“And obviously, the way things went in 2024 with Republicans, there wasn’t a change at all. It’s just been worse. So we’re gonna try and see.”

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