The hidden 2024 trend that complicates the Latino shift toward Trump

Underlying the 2024 election results was a subtle trend that could signal a dramatic reshaping of the electorate: a surge in ticket-splitting among Latino voters who shifted sharply toward Donald Trump but also supported Democratic House and Senate candidates.

The rise in voters simultaneously backing both parties, revealed by a detailed new POLITICO analysis of results and voting records, complicates how both parties will approach next year’s midterms and the 2028 presidential race.

It also raises an urgent question: Were Trump’s gains with Latinos a sign of a fundamental break with the Democratic Party, or are voters who backed him in 2024 still largely Democrats who just preferred him over Kamala Harris?

The stakes are monumental. Heavily Hispanic and Latino areas that saw significant ticket-splitting are key to many swing districts and battleground states. The party that can win over those voters — Republicans converting Trump supporters into reliable GOP voters, or Democrats bringing them back into the fold more firmly — will have a clear electoral advantage in the years ahead.

“The working class of the future are Latinos in the southwest,” said Mike Madrid, a veteran Republican political consultant who authored a book on Latino voting trends. “Whichever party captures the votes and confidence of a multiethnic, aspirational working class will be the dominant party for the next generation.”

While Republicans and Democrats are largely working off the same data about what happened in 2024, top leaders in each party are making drastically different bets about what it means as they craft their 2026 strategies.

Republicans see opportunities to make inroads with a previously elusive voting bloc, they’re looking to ensure Latino voters new to the GOP continue to vote for Republican candidates, using Trump’s success as a stepping stone.

"We've seen a trend over the last couple decades, really, of Hispanic voters embracing Republicans," said Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), the chair of the House GOP campaign arm. "We, the Republican Party, really want to earn the votes from the Hispanic community, and we made a very concerted effort over the last couple of cycles."

Some Democratic leaders don’t see cause for panic. Trump’s success in November was unique, they argue, not a warning sign of a fracturing of their multiracial coalition. They look at down-ballot victories as a roadmap to winning back power and argue that the success of Democratic congressional candidates is proof the party still has what it takes to win with Latino voters.

That is even more true in future elections, they say, with Trump not directly on the ballot and Republicans the party in power in an uncertain economy.

"The dynamic in the midterm is going to be very different," said Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.), the chair of the House Democratic campaign arm. "It's not a presidential cycle, and Republicans are going to have to defend what they're doing to take away resources from our communities."

Still other Democrats see a crisis in the making. They worry the presidential shift signals a fundamental realignment that could endanger the party’s chances of reclaiming power — leaving down-ballot Democrats who survived the presidential wipeout in 2024 unsafe in future elections.

Trump’s presidential win was driven by shifts among nearly every type of voter and across every geography, and his gains were largest among Latino voters. But the POLITICO analysis of precinct-level results and cast-vote records, the most detailed data available, shows Latino voters also drove a resurgence in ticket-splitting in 2024. Trump voters in the most Latino areas were disproportionately likely to also vote for Democrats in key Senate and House races, blunting Republicans’ down-ballot improvements and preventing deeper liberal losses.

In Clark County, Nevada, where Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nev.) was reelected in a Trump-won district, the POLITICO analysis of cast-vote records found a nearly one-third increase in ballots for both Trump and Democratic House candidates compared to 2020, with crossover voting greatest in predominantly Latino precincts.

The trend played out in key Senate races too. In Arizona, now-Sen. Ruben Gallego ran 6.3 points ahead of Harris in precincts where at least 80 percent of the population is Hispanic or Latino, compared to 4 points statewide. The border city of Nogales, which is roughly 95 percent Hispanic or Latino, epitomizes how the presidential shift largely did not trickle down-ballot: In 2020, former President Joe Biden won just shy of 77 percent of the two-party vote there. In November, Gallego still won 75 percent of ballots, but Harris’s share dropped to 69 percent.

In Nevada, Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen ran 5.5 points ahead of Harris in heavily Latino areas, more than double her 2.4-point statewide differential in two-party vote share. And in Texas, Colin Allred still outperformed Harris the most in the predominantly Latino Rio Grande Valley even as he came up short against Sen. Ted Cruz.

The prevalence of split-ticket voting “speaks to perhaps an isolated effect that may be Trump-specific, rather than a permanent shift of support from Democrats to Republicans,” said Luke Warford, a Texas-based Democratic political strategist.

Still, he said, winning over voters more fully will require serious financial investment. And there’s a lesson amid the party’s ongoing identity crisis — many of the most successful down-ballot candidates distinguished themselves from the party’s broader image.

The results from Texas, Warford said, indicate “a broad unpopularity of the national Democratic brand, and the need for Democrats in Texas to show clearly what it means to be a Texas Democrat.”

But some Democrats worry that means Trump’s success might still signal a troubling trend.

“It should be a serious warning sign,” said Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas), whose South Texas seat went for Trump last year. “I won by 2.5 points. We used to win by 20 points and 30 points down there.”

“We’re living in extraordinary times,” Gonzalez said. “If we rely on just historical data, I think it's negligent.”

Six of the 13 congressional districts that went for both Trump and a House Democrat are at least 40 percent Latino, and five of those six districts swung more than 10 points to the right at the presidential level between 2020 and 2024. Those voters backed Trump while also reelecting members like Gonzalez along with Reps. Gabe Vasquez (D-N.M.) and Josh Harder (D-Calif.) — all of whom are now in the DCCC’s incumbent-protection program, and named as targets for Republicans next year.

Republicans, meanwhile, are strategizing about how to fully bring Latinos into their camp.

Lea Márquez Peterson, a Republican member of the elected Arizona Corporation Commission, launched the Hispanic Leadership PAC in 2023 to support Hispanic Republican candidates and provide a consistent voice to Latino voters about conservative principles. The goal, she said, is to “not drop the ball, continue to look at the data, what we just learned in this last election, and then to continue that outreach.”

Over the past decade, lower Hispanic turnout in midterm elections was generally seen as a warning sign for Democrats. But with more Latino voters potentially up for grabs, that math is shifting.

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), whose South Florida district is roughly two thirds Hispanic or Latino, said he believes Latino voters will be drawn to GOP policies and have increasingly rejected Democrats. But translating that into votes can be a challenge, especially in a non-presidential year.

“The question is turnout,” he said, “and how do we get the turnout?”