It’s a safe bet that Texas won’t be going the way of Georgia any time soon, according to a new poll showing a groundswell of support for President Donald Trump among Hispanic voters.
The Lone Star State has been a tantalizing future battleground for Democrats who have long hoped that changing demographics would pave the way to more viable statewide contests for governor and U.S. Senate. However, that pipe dream was put to rest on Tuesday when a new poll revealed that Trump’s support among Texas Hispanics has shot up 22 points over the past month.
Hispanic voters were a key constituency in Trump’s 2024 coalition, and one he significantly expanded on since his first successful campaign. In 2016, Hispanic voters accounted for just 16% of those who voted for Trump; last year, however, they made up 42%.
An InsiderAdvantage poll of 1,000 likely voters shows that 59.6% of Hispanics approve of the overall job Trump is doing six months into his second term, while 40.4% disapprove. The poll was conducted from May 17 to 19 and carried a 3.09% margin of error.
That’s a roughly 22-point increase since the firm’s previous poll showing Trump’s support underwater with Hispanic voters. In April, 38.4% told pollsters they approved of Trump while 42% disapproved.
In the 2024 election, Trump earned 55% support among Texas’ Hispanic voters, according to the Texas Political Project. An estimated 1 in 4 said they voted for the first time, and other polls have shown that the president was the first Republican in decades to outpace his Democratic opponent among new voters.
What’s changed since April has been a number of notable economic wins for Trump, including some that have directly benefited Texas.
Apple has begun construction on a 250,000-square-foot AI server manufacturing facility in Houston that is estimated to employ 20,000 American workers.
“We are bullish on the future of American innovation, and we’re proud to build on our long-standing U.S. investments with this $500 billion commitment to our country’s future,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement at the time.
The latest results were nearly mirrored by liberal polling group Civiqs/Daily Kos, which found that Trump’s support among Hispanics had grown by 15 points to 57% in May compared to 42% in April, according to Newsweek.
Mark Shanahan, an American politics expert who teaches at the University of Surrey in the U.K., said it’s unsurprising to see Trump’s support undulating with the daily news out of his administration, which has been consistent and extraordinary.
“We’re in a period of yo-yo polling, often among the same demographics, which pretty much reflects the president’s current yo-yo policies, especially around trade. For Hispanic voters, the two policy areas that have moved the dial most for them are the economy and immigration and their positive/negative view of the president can change within a couple of news cycles.”
“On immigration, many established Hispanic-heritage citizens are supportive of Trump’s fairly extreme policy towards undocumented immigrants and their families, while others, perhaps with more recent ties to Central and South America, are solidly against this administration’s actions,” he continued.
He added: “On the economy, it has looked recently as if Trump has rolled back a little from his confrontational stance on tariffs, and markets have settled down. We’ve seen oil prices tumble, and even the price of eggs is dropping away. So, while these may not actually be concrete signs of an improved U.S. economy, some voters are seeing them that way. The Trump administration is still a roller-coaster ride, and it’s far too early to claim on the evidence of one poll that he’s succeeding in office.”
