President Donald Trump’s mass arrests and deportations cost Republicans the Hispanic voters he won in 2024, and the party may not get them back. The midterm losses could mark an enduring shift in the fastest-growing segment of the electorate.

By 2040, the share of eligible white voters will have plummeted to 56% from 85% in 1980. Meanwhile, the Hispanic proportion is in the process of rising sevenfold — from 3% in 1980 to more than one in five during the same period. At a time when the ranks of eligible white voters is declining, the largest number of new voters are Hispanic, accounting for more than half of the entire new generation of voters. This is America’s future as white newborn babies increasingly become a minority and the size of all other racial and ethnic groups grows in the coming years.

Republicans have been anticipating America’s changing voter for some time. George W. Bush concentrated on appealing to Hispanic voters and won 44% in 2004.

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But progress stalled. After Mitt Romney’s defeat in the 2012 presidential election, the Republican National Committee concluded that “we will lose future elections” if the party’s appeal “continues to shrink to its core constituencies only” and failed to accommodate the “nation’s demographic changes.” The solution, it insisted, was to “campaign among Hispanic, black, Asian, and gay Americans” with policies that credibly appealed to them.

Republicans welcomed Trump’s historic share of 48% of Hispanic votes in 2024, marking a 20-point gain over his margin in 2016.  

Trump’s deportation policy in his second administration removed over 600,000 by mid-2026 and sharply departed from the campaign message to remove undocumented immigrants with criminal records, gang members and people he described as dangerous. By September 2026, three-quarters of recent ICE arrests were not of people with criminal records. Overall, the largest category of deportees lacked convictions, criminal charges or gang affiliations.

Hispanic Americans recoiled from Trump’s large-scale deportations and aggressive ICE enforcement. Two-thirds disapprove of Trump’s job performance, and a comparable margin dislike his immigration enforcement policies. The dissatisfaction includes Hispanic voters who voted for Trump in 2024 and those who identify as Republicans. Only 57% of Hispanic voters who backed Trump in 2024 now approve of his performance and a quarter support a Democrat for Congress or were undecided. 

While many Hispanic Americans support border security and deporting serious criminals, two-thirds of Hispanic registered voters believe Trump’s deportations have gone too far. They oppose what are seen as indiscriminate raids, deportations of long-term residents and actions that frighten families.

Although further analysis is needed, the evidence suggests that declining Republican support among Hispanic voters contributed to the party’s House losses in the 2026 midterms, reversing part of Trump’s gains in 2024. 

Texas provides a striking example: Republicans captured only one of five Democratic-held seats targeted through redistricting, while Democrats flipped two Republican-held seats — the 15th and 23rd districts — leaving the GOP with a net loss of one seat. These results undermine Republicans’ expectation that Trump’s Hispanic gains would provide a durable advantage.

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Here is the nightmare for today’s Republicans: A rerun of the political backlash triggered by former California Gov. Pete Wilson’s campaign against the undocumented in the mid-1990s. Wilson’s aggressive steps to pass and implement Prop 187 threatened to deny the undocumented public education, medical care and other public services.  

Hispanic Americans saw Wilson’s actions as an outsized attack on them as a community and responded with a powerful political movement. The result: increased voter registration and a durable alliance with the Democratic Party. A lasting 7.1 percentage point increase in Hispanic loyalty to the Democrats is attributed to Wilson.

The 2026 elections suggest that Trump’s extraordinary deportations may have triggered enduring damage to the reputation of the Republican Party. Nearly three-quarters of Hispanic voters perceive the GOP as hostile or indifferent to their treatment. A third of Hispanic Republicans agreed.

Republicans have been here before. The Republicans who hope to succeed him will have to decide if they want to pursue the legacy of Pete Wilson or George W. Bush.

Lawrence R. Jacobs is a professor at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs where he directs the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance.

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