A majority of Latinos disapprove of Donald Trump and his economic and immigration policies, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center.
After receiving support from nearly half of Latino voters in the 2024 election, Trump had lost the backing of a majority surveyed in October. Pew found that 70% of Latinos “disapprove of the way Trump is handling his job as president”, while 65% disapprove of his administration’s approach to immigration and 61% believe his economic policies have worsened economic conditions.
Trump won 48% of the Latino vote in 2024, up from 28% in 2016. Latinos, one of the fastest-growing demographics in the United States, account for one in five Americans.
After the 2024 election, Latinos, particularly Latino men, credited Trump’s economic proposals and immigration policies – suggesting he was not serious about threats of mass deportations – for winning their vote.
At the time, two-thirds of Latinos said they “do not feel like he is talking about me” when Trump discussed his immigration policies, and more than 40% approved of his proposal to build a border wall, according to an October 2024 Siena poll for the New York Times.
But since Trump implemented sweeping tariffs and social safety net spending cuts, alongside aggressive immigration raids, that support has dwindled. In June, a co-founder of Latinas for Trump criticized widespread immigration arrests as “unacceptable and inhumane”.
The results of the November elections showed that Democrats won back Latino voters in New Jersey and Virginia’s gubernatorial races.
The shifts within the Latino electorate are still markedly divided by political party. According to the Pew report, while nearly all Latinos who voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election disapprove of Trump, 81% of those who voted for Trump approve of the president’s job (down from 93% at the start of his term).
A majority of Latinos worry that they, a family member or a close friend could be deported under the president’s heightened immigration enforcement – where 42% expressed such fear in March, 52% do now. Nearly 60% said they had witnessed or heard of immigration raids or arrests in their community in the past six months.
For the first time in nearly two decades, Pew reported that “most Hispanics say their situation has worsened”. While 10% of Hispanics told Pew that Trump’s policies helped them, 78% said the president’s policies harmed their community.