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A year after Trump's inroads with Latinos, a majority nationwide disapprove of his job performance and policies

Fallon Roth, The Philadelphia Inquirer on

Published in Political News

A majority of Latino adults disapprove of President Donald Trump’s job performance and his policies on immigration and the economy, according to a new Pew Research Center report that offers insight on the shifting opinions of a key voter demographic that Trump made inroads with in 2024.

The study, published Monday, offers a glimpse into how a majority of Latino adults nationwide have a negative view of Trump’s performance and policies that were important to them during the 2024 election. However, a majority of Latinos who voted for Trump in 2024 remain supportive of the president.

Pew Research Center based its analysis on two nationwide surveys conducted this fall. The center surveyed almost 5,000 Latino adults from Oct. 6 to Oct. 16 as part of its National Survey of Latinos. A prior survey of U.S. adults, including 629 Hispanic respondents, was conducted from Sept. 22 to 28.

The report includes the opinions of Latino residents in the United States, including people both eligible and ineligible to vote. A strong majority of Latino voters who supported former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 are critical of Trump’s performance, according to the report.

Among the highlights of the survey, 70% of Latino adults disapprove of Trump’s handling of the presidency, 65% disapprove of the Trump administration’s immigration policies, and 61% say the president’s economic initiatives “have made economic conditions worse,” according to the report.

Additionally, approximately four in five Latinos say that Trump’s policies “harm Hispanics, a higher share than during his first term.”

Latinos are among the fastest growing demographic groups in the United States and were a key voting bloc during the 2024 presidential election. Though Trump significantly improved his support among Latino voters in 2024, he did not win the demographic overall. In Pennsylvania, some Latino voters set aside his incendiary rhetoric about their community in favor of his promises to help the economy.

It remains to be seen how the pessimism with Trump reflected in the report will impact the 2026 midterms, said Luis Noé-Bustamante, a research associate at the Pew Research Center and an author of the report.

But Latino voters swung back to Democrats during the elections earlier this month, including for Democratic Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill, whose margins over Republican Jack Ciattarelli ranged from 57 to 71 percentage points in majority Latino municipalities, according to data from Nov. 5.

Her campaign made efforts to reengage Black and Latino voters, including those who were turned off by Trump’s immigration and economic policies. Sherrill’s campaign was largely focused on affordability and combating Trump.

“Similar to how the economy and affordability was a top issue among Latinos in the lead up to the 2024 election, it continues to be a priority among them and something in which they continue to have generally pessimistic views,” Noé-Bustamante said. “But that could change. Conditions on the ground could change and of course that could shift opinions of the president and his administration.”

In the Pew Research Center survey, about two-thirds of Latinos say their situation in the United States is worse today than it was a year ago, the first time in nearly two decades of the Pew Research Center Hispanic surveys.

 

Latinos have become increasingly concerned about their belonging in the United States, increasing from 48% in 2019 to 55% in 2025, according to the report. And when it comes to their personal finances, approximately one-in-three Latinos have struggled to pay for groceries, medical care, or their rent or mortgage in the last year. However, half believe their financial situation will improve over the next year and some have had beneficial financial experiences in the last year.

On immigration, slightly more than half — 52% — of Latino adults say they worry constantly about the prospect that they, or someone they are close to, could be deported amid the Trump administration’s surge of immigration enforcement. About 71% say the administration is “doing too much” when it comes to deporting immigrants who have not legally entered the U.S, according to the report.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has aggressively targeted immigrants in the Philadelphia area, raiding communities and carrying out arrests, which members and allies of the Latino community continue to protest.

Though a vast majority of Latinos have a critical perspective of Trump, Latinos who voted for Trump in 2024 have largely remained loyal to the president and his ideals, while Latino Republicans who did not vote for him have less favorable views of the president.

As an example, Trump has an 81% job approval rating among Latinos who voted for him, though this has declined from 93% at the beginning of his term.

Similarly, a smaller share of Latino Trump voters say their situation has worsened in the United States, that Trump’s policies are harmful to Hispanics, and that they’re worried about their belonging in the U.S.

That loyalty to Trump has remained among some in places, like Hazleton, the only one of Pennsylvania’s three largest majority-Latino cities to vote for Trump in 2024. Hazleton residents told The Inquirer in August that there was some skepticism around Trump’s economic and immigration policies even as some continued to support him.

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(Staff writer Julia Terruso contributed to this article.)

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©2025 The Philadelphia Inquirer. Visit inquirer.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

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