Will Latinos turn Texas blue in 2026?
That’s the big question many are asking after early polling showed shifting sentiments among Hispanic voters in the Lone Star State, who turned to the Republican Party during the last presidential cycle in the state.
President Donald Trump in 2024 won more than half, 55%, of the Latino vote in the state, a 13-percentage-point increase from 2020, a record high for a Republican presidential candidate and a 27-percentage-point increase from 2016, according to data from the Texas Politics Project.
But Republicans are now losing the gains they made with Hispanic voters as cost of living rise, such as high prices for groceries to gas prices, along with the increased immigration enforcement that has plagued Latino
communities across the nation. It’s thrown a typically safe red state into closely watched and hotly contested races for Senate, governor and even some key House seats that Republicans flipped in recent years in this year's midterm election.
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I’m Rebecca Morin, a senior national news reporter at USA TODAY. I’ve been documenting this shift among Latino voters, especially in South Texas – my home area – for several election cycles.
Join me on Reddit at 2 p.m. ET on Monday, Oct. 26, to talk about Latino voters in Texas, what early voting turnout means and the changing political landscape in the state.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: I'm a reporter covering Latino voters in Texas. Ask me anything
