Latino voters reverse last year's swing toward Trump with New Jersey, Virginia Democratic victories
Democrats won big last week with Latino voters on Election Day, indicating a potential reversal of the gains Donald Trump made among the group in last year’s presidential election. The effects were perhaps best seen in New Jersey, a state with a Hispanic population of nearly 22%, when counties with large Latino populations moved to the left following a rightward shift in 2024.
In Hudson County, which has a Hispanic population of 41%, Democrat Mikie Sherrill beat Republican Jack Ciattarelli by 50 points, compared to then-Vice President Kamala Harris' 28-point margin of victory over Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. And in Passaic County, where Latinos make up 43% of the total population, Sherril beat Ciattarelli by nearly 15 points; in the 2024 presidential election, Trump won the county by three.
“For many years, I think, the Latino community and the vote of the Latino community has been taken for granted,” Passaic Mayor Hector C. Lora told ABC News. “Automatically, it would go a certain way. And that was proven wrong last year.”
Trump was able to make inroads with Latino voters by centering his campaign around affordability. Maria Teresa Kumar, president and CEO of the Latino voting organization Voto Latino, called the rightward shift among Latino voters reflected in 2024 exit polling “a cry for help.”
"We are living in a populist moment, and whichever candidate can effectively communicate that they are going to help meet people's – not just basic needs, but an aspirational agenda – that is just going to move them forward. And I would say that Mikie Sherrill and Abigail [Spanberger] both did that,” Kumar told ABC News.
In Manassas Park, Virginia, a city that is nearly 40% Hispanic, the electorate swung 22 points to the left last week for Democratic Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger. Virginia state Delegate Alfonso Lopez, who is the first Latino Democrat elected to the Virginia General Assembly and the founder of the Virginia Latino Caucus, says part of the reason Democrats saw such success among Latino voters in this cycle was Trump’s failure to live up to his campaign promises.
“For Latinos in Virginia, it really came down to the economy and jobs, prices, cost of living, as well as promises made by the Trump administration that turned out to be lies,” Lopez told ABC News.
And while Trump’s handling of the economy certainly loomed over these two races, pollsters and political operatives have said the effect that the Trump administration’s large-scale immigration enforcement may have had on Latino voters - who have witnessed U.S. citizens become targets for speaking Spanish and watched families of mixed immigration status be separated - cannot be ignored.
“We're witnessing people here who are documented, people who are American citizens, under incredible stress because of the militarization of ICE,” Kumar said, adding that many feel that “this is not what we signed up for.”
Héctor E. Sánchez Barba, president and CEO of Latino voting organization Mi Familia Vota, told ABC News that “the terrorizing and the extremism of ICE – it's really affecting the quality of life of all Latinos in the nation.”
“Latinos have been the main target of this president and of the MAGA agenda, and we’re saying enough is enough,” Sanchez Barba said.
But GOP strategist Mike Madrid, co-founder of the anti-Trump PAC the Lincoln Project, says that “Republicans on Tuesday night lost for exactly the same reasons that Democrats lost a year ago this past November, which is economic concerns.”
“There is no question that the ICE raids, the deportation, the overreach by the Trump administration did have some impact, but not enough to increase turnout,” Madrid told ABC News.
Madrid added that Tuesday’s Republican losses were “not an affirmation of the Democratic Party,” but rather “a rejection of the Republican Party.”
“Latinos are the blue-collar working class, and that workforce is dramatically more impacted by tariffs,” he said, referencing the Trump administration’s controversial tariff policies.
With the 2026 midterms fast approaching, both Democrats and Republicans will be looking for lessons that can be learned from this cycle as both parties vie for power in Congress.
"She spent time in Passaic,” Lora said of Sherrill. “She spoke to business owners. She paused and stopped and spoke to people on the streets.”
“She not only spoke to the Latino community, she listened to the Latino community,” Lora added.
Lopez likewise commended Spanberger for engaging with Latino communities in Virginia, “not just in the last couple months of the campaign, not just the last few weeks, but over the course of the entire campaign.”
“That really mattered for, I think, Latinos across the state,” he added.
“They met voters where they were, they spoke to people's concerns in authentic, human ways, and then they pushed policy,” Kumar said of both Sherrill and Spanberger. “I think the Democrats can really learn a lesson from that.”
Lora says Tuesday’s widespread Democratic victories “may be a very strong message across the aisle.”
“Because there will be Mikie Sherrills throughout the entire nation rising up as governors and taking those seats in Congress if they continue in the direction that they're going,” Lora said.
