Florida's Latino voters stand apart as Hispanics nationally sour on Trump heading into the 2026 midterms

Hispanic voters nationally are turning against President Donald Trump two years after helping return him to the White House, but Florida remains the exception that Republicans are counting on as early voting begins Monday, Oct. 19. Recent polls show Florida's Hispanic electorate split far more evenly than Latinos elsewhere, with Republican candidates for governor and U.S. Senate narrowly ahead among those voters in one survey and behind in another, leaving Miami-Dade County and its Cuban American, Venezuelan and Colombian communities at the center of the Nov. 3 midterms.

The national shift, and Florida's exception

An Associated Press report published Saturday found that many Latino voters who backed Trump in 2024 now feel let down by high prices and the war with Iran. About 6 in 10 Hispanic voters disapprove of how Trump is handling the presidency, and more than 7 in 10 disapprove of his handling of the economy, according to an AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll from October. In the same survey, 55% of Hispanics viewed the Republican Party unfavorably and 38% favorably, while their views of the Democratic Party were about evenly split.

Florida looks different. A national survey by Florida International University's Latino Public Opinion Forum, released in April, found more than two-thirds of Latino voters disapproved of Trump and 60% said they planned to vote for Democrats in November. But Florida was what FIU called the least anti-Trump state, with Trump's net approval among Latinos at minus 10, compared with as low as minus 55 in California, Texas and Arizona. Cuban respondents were Trump's strongest group: 53% supported him, said FIU professor Eduardo Gamarra, who directs the forum.

A separate UnidosUS and BSP Research poll in May found two-thirds of Latino voters nationally disapproved of Trump's job performance, with disapproval a majority in every region tested, including 51% in Florida, according to Axios.

What Florida polls show this fall

Hispanic subsamples in statewide polls are small and carry wider margins of error than the full surveys, and the two most recent nonpartisan polls point in opposite directions:

Statewide, the Mason-Dixon poll of 625 likely voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points, found Republican Byron Donalds leading Democrat David Jolly 48% to 41% for governor and Republican Sen. Ashley Moody leading Democrat Angie Nixon 50% to 40%, with 2% for independent Neil Gillespie. The St. Pete Polls survey for Florida Politics had the governor's race tied at 45%.

Both polls show the Hispanic vote is in play rather than locked in for either party. That is a change from 2022, when Gov. Ron DeSantis won 57% of Latino voters, according to ABC News exit polling, and from 2024, when Trump won Miami-Dade County outright.

Miami-Dade's electorate

No county matters more to the Hispanic vote than Miami-Dade, where Axios has reported that about 62% of roughly 1.3 million registered voters are Hispanic. In May 2025, Republicans overtook Democrats in voter registration in the county for the first time in recent history, with 464,370 registered Republicans, 440,790 Democrats and 460,783 voters registered with no party or a minor party, the Florida Phoenix reported. Statewide, Republicans hold a voter registration edge of more than 1 million, according to state records.

The large bloc of voters with no party affiliation is one reason both campaigns treat Miami-Dade as competitive. FIU's Gamarra has said Latino independents decided the Latino vote in 2024 and are likely to do so again; only 29% of them nationally approved of Trump's performance in the April survey.

Immigration enforcement cuts both ways

Immigration is where Florida's Hispanic voters diverge most from Latinos elsewhere. FIU's survey found 55% of Florida Latinos, and more than 70% of Cuban respondents, supported Trump's deportation campaign, even as 66% of Latinos nationally disapproved of the tactics used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In the Mason-Dixon poll, immigration enforcement ranked fourth among Hispanic voters' top issues, behind the cost of living, according to Telemundo's report on the survey.

Enforcement has hit close to home in South Florida. Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans ended in late September, and Venezuelan neighborhoods such as Doral have been affected by ICE operations, WLRN reported. Deportations of Cubans have also risen. Those developments have pushed some Republicans to put distance between themselves and the administration. U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar, a Miami Republican, released an ad in September telling Trump that some of his immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far.

The races on the ballot

Salazar's FL-27 seat, which runs from Little Havana to Cutler Bay and west into Kendall, is the state's most closely watched House race. She faces Democrat Eliott Rodriguez, a former CBS Miami anchor; both are Cuban American. A Tulchin Research poll for the Democratic-aligned House Majority PAC, taken Sept. 8 to 13, showed Salazar ahead 47% to 46%, and the Cook Political Report has moved the race from Solid to Lean Republican. The site reported Oct. 4 that Rodriguez outraised Salazar in the third quarter.

In the governor's race, Donalds picked state Sen. Bryan Ávila of Miami-Dade as his running mate and campaigned with him at the Bay of Pigs Museum in Little Havana on Oct. 16, stressing opposition to communism. Jolly, a former Republican congressman, has focused on housing, health care and the cost of living. In the Senate race, Moody is defending the seat she was appointed to after Marco Rubio became secretary of state. Nixon, a state representative from Jacksonville, outraised Moody by $1.8 million in the third quarter, the site reported Oct. 13. Nixon is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, and 52% of voters in the Mason-Dixon poll said they would be less likely to vote for a self-described democratic socialist.

Why it matters beyond Florida

Nationally, the path to a U.S. House majority runs through heavily Latino districts in Arizona, Colorado and Texas, the AP reported. Political consultant Mike Madrid, author of a book on Latino voters, told the AP that Latinos are going through a dealignment from both parties, driven more by pocketbook concerns than ethnic identity. If Florida's Hispanic voters hold with Republicans while Latinos elsewhere swing away, the state would stand further apart from national trends; a shift in Miami-Dade, by contrast, would signal that the 2024 realignment is reversing even in its strongest base.

What's next

Early voting begins Monday, Oct. 19, in many counties, WSVN reported. Florida law requires every county to offer early voting at least from Oct. 24 through Oct. 31, and counties may add days. Voters can check their county supervisor of elections for sites and hours. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3, and Trump is scheduled to rally for Donalds in Fort Myers on Oct. 23.