Republicans are in full-out panic mode over their plunging support with Hispanic voters after losing a special election in a ruby-red Texas district over the weekend.
On Saturday, a Democrat posted a 14-point victory in a Fort Worth-based state senate district President Donald Trump had won by 17 points in 2024, a staggering swing that was powered by significant shifts across the district’s Hispanic areas.
It’s the clearest sign yet that the GOP’s newfound coalition that propelled Trump’s return to the White House may be short-lived. Many Republicans are warning the party needs to change course on immigration, focus on bread-and-butter economic issues and start pouring money into competitive races — or risk getting stomped in November.
Polling already showed that Republicans were rapidly losing support from Hispanic voters. But the electoral results were a confirmation of that drop.
“It should be an eye-opener to all of us that we all need to pick up the pace,” U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, a Republican from a majority-Hispanic district in South Texas, said in an interview. “The candidate has to do their part, the party has to do their part. And then those of us in the arena, we have to do our part to help them as well.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) told reporters Tuesday that the election was a “very concerning outcome.” Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick posted on X that the results should be a “wake-up call for Republicans across Texas. Our voters cannot take anything for granted.” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said “a swing of this magnitude is not something that can be dismissed.”
Taylor Rehmet, the Democrat who flipped the state Senate seat over the weekend, made huge gains with Hispanic voters amid national pushback to the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement tactics and widespread economic frustration across demographic groups.
Ahead of the election, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott — an immigration hardliner who bused migrants to Democratic-led cities during the Biden administration — said the White House needed to “recalibrate” on its immigration crackdowns following the shooting of Alex Pretti by an immigration officer in Minneapolis.
“That imagery coming out of Minnesota in the last few days has had a huge impact on not only Hispanic voters, but swing voters, independents in Texas and around the country,” said Texas GOP consultant Brendan Steinhauser. “What’s transpired there has definitely led to a bit of a political backlash.”
As Republicans panic, Democrats are feeling a renewed jolt of optimism after they swept statewide races last year in Virginia and New Jersey. They believe they found a winning formula with Rehmet, whose working-class biography as a union leader, Air Force veteran and Lockheed Martin machinist resonated with voters, along with his narrow focus on local issues like maintaining public school funding.
Tory Gavito, president of Democratic donor network Way to Win, said she received excited texts from several major donors over the weekend after the win. “Knowing it’s a wave year, this just adds a little bit of more wind in our sails,” she said. “It’s not just a question around Texas, it’s a question around Texas and Mississippi and Alabama and what does this mean for lots of places.”
Texas Republicans have the most to worry about of any in their party about a major Hispanic snapback towards Democrats.
Hispanics are now the largest ethnic group in Texas, making up 40 percent of the population. Trump carried Latinos in the state in 2024, exit polls showed, a massive swing from earlier elections, and Republicans had been making especially strong gains with rural, more conservative Hispanic voters in the Rio Grande Valley. But as Texas Democrats look to win a U.S. Senate election for the first time since 1988, they’re eyeing an opportunity to pull those voters back in.
“They are leaving in droves and going in the opposite direction,” said Javier Palomarez, president and CEO of the U.S. Hispanic Business Council. “This is a warning sign.”
And Texas Republicans also banked on retaining at least some of their newfound Hispanic support when they redrew their Congressional map last year, creating several majority-Hispanic districts that Trump would have carried by double digits last year. That includes rejiggering district lines for two top GOP targets, Democratic Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, as well as a third district outside San Antonio.
“They’ve banged three of these five new Republican seats on a demographic that Democrats were never able to turn out for 30-40 years, ” said GOP consultant and Trump critic Mike Madrid, referring to young, Hispanic male voters. But now, Trump’s hardline immigration policies have “angered and upset them.”
Samuel Benson and Alex Gangitano contributed to this report.
