Don’t expect Texas to turn into the next Georgia anytime soon—at least not if the latest numbers are any indication. A new poll shows a surge in support for President Donald Trump among Hispanic voters, dashing Democrats’ long-held hopes of flipping the Lone Star State.
For years, Democrats have viewed Texas as a future battleground, banking on demographic shifts to make statewide races for governor and U.S. Senate more competitive. But that narrative took a major hit Tuesday, when a new survey revealed Trump’s support among Texas Hispanics has jumped 22 points in just the past month.
Hispanic voters played a pivotal role in President Trump’s 2024 coalition—one he has dramatically expanded since his first run. In 2016, Hispanics made up just 16% of Trump’s voter base; by 2024, that number had surged to 42%.
A new InsiderAdvantage poll of 1,000 likely voters found that 59.6% of Hispanic respondents approve of Trump’s performance six months into his second term, while 40.4% disapprove. The poll, conducted from May 17 to 19 with a 3.09% margin of error, marks a striking 22-point jump from April, when just 38.4% approved and 42% disapproved.
In the 2024 election, Trump captured 55% of the Hispanic vote in Texas, according to the Texas Political Project. Remarkably, about one in four Hispanic voters said they were casting a ballot for the first time—and additional polling shows Trump was the first Republican in decades to outperform his Democratic rival among newly registered voters.
Since April, there have been several significant economic gains for Trump, with many directly benefiting Texas. Apple has started building a 250,000-square-foot AI server manufacturing facility in Houston, which is projected 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 recent results were closely matched by the liberal polling group Civiqs/Daily Kos, which indicated that Trump’s support among Hispanics increased by 15 points to 57% in May, up from 42% in April, according to Newsweek.
Mark Shanahan, an expert in American politics at the University of Surrey in the U.K., noted that it is not surprising to see Trump’s support fluctuating based on the daily news from his administration, which has remained consistent and remarkable.
“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.”
