Latino Voters Swung Left Nationally in the Midterms. In Florida, Hispanic Voters Moved Too, but Not Far Enough to Flip the State

Hispanic voters swung sharply toward Democrats in Tuesday's midterm elections, powering wins in Texas and in heavily Latino districts across the country, and Florida's Hispanic voters moved in the same direction, though by less. Fewer than half of Hispanic voters in Florida backed Republican Sen. Ashley Moody, according to AP VoteCast, after 55 percent supported President Donald Trump in 2024. That shift helped Democrats carry Miami-Dade County for governor and Senate for the first time since 2020, but Republicans still won every statewide race.

The result leaves Florida as something of an outlier. Democrats took control of both chambers of Congress and flipped a Senate seat and the governor's office in Texas, while Florida Republicans held the governorship, the U.S. Senate seat and all three Cabinet posts, most by about 3 points or less, according to CBS News Miami.

The national picture

About one-third of Hispanic voters nationally backed the Republican candidate in their U.S. House race, down from roughly 4 in 10 who voted for Trump two years earlier, according to an Associated Press analysis published by WKMG. In House districts where at least a quarter of the voting-age citizens are Hispanic, the Democratic share averaged about 11 points higher than Kamala Harris's 2024 showing, compared with a 7-point gain elsewhere. In majority-Hispanic counties, Democratic Senate candidates ran more than 15 points ahead of their party's 2024 results.

Democrats won every House district along the U.S.-Mexico border for the first time since 2008, and 14 Hispanic Democrats were newly elected to the House, 10 of them in districts held by Republicans or redrawn to favor the GOP, the AP reported. Voters cited rising prices, government corruption and the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, which the AP said has especially affected Latino communities.

Texas set the pace

The biggest swing came in Texas. Roughly 7 in 10 Hispanic voters there backed Democrat James Talarico for U.S. Senate over Republican Ken Paxton, according to AP VoteCast, after the group split roughly evenly in 2024. Among Texas Hispanic voters under 65, the swing toward Talarico was about 20 points. Every county in Texas voted more Democratic than in 2024, generally with larger shifts in more heavily Hispanic counties, and Democrats won every statewide office on the ballot, including the governor's race won by Gina Hinojosa.

Gov. Ron DeSantis pointed to Texas when he described the national results this week as a "100-year-type political earthquake," WKMG reported.

How Florida's Hispanic vote moved

Florida's Hispanic voters shifted toward Democrats, but from a much more Republican starting point. Trump won 55 percent of the state's Hispanic vote in 2024; in Tuesday's Senate race, Moody won less than half, according to AP VoteCast. Moody still won statewide by about 3 points over Democrat Angie Nixon, and Byron Donalds beat Democrat David Jolly for governor by about 1.3 points, 50.02 percent to 48.71 percent in unofficial results reported by WINK News.

The clearest view comes from Miami-Dade, home to the state's largest concentration of Hispanic voters. A Miami Herald analysis of precinct results found:

In the Senate race, Moody beat Nixon by about 4 points in Hispanic-majority precincts, the Herald found. In other words, Hispanic neighborhoods in Miami-Dade still leaned Republican, but by a far thinner margin than the double-digit edge DeSantis enjoyed four years ago. Combined with gains among white and Black voters, that was enough for Jolly and Nixon to carry the county. Miami-Dade swung about 18 points toward Democrats compared with the 2024 presidential election, according to the AP. Turnout topped 60 percent, the highest for a Miami-Dade midterm since at least 2000, the Herald reported.

The South Florida House races

The shift showed up most clearly in Miami's Hispanic-majority congressional districts, which Republicans had held comfortably for years. In the 27th District, Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar led Democrat Eliott Rodriguez by 1,116 votes as of Wednesday afternoon, 50.23 percent to 49.77 percent. The 0.46-point margin falls within the state's 0.5-point threshold for an automatic machine recount, Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Alina Garcia said. A manual recount would be required if the margin narrows to 0.25 points or less. The county canvassing board is set to reconvene Friday.

In the 26th District, CBS News Miami listed Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart's race against Democrat Nicole Locklin as too close to call on election night. Republican Rep. Carlos Gimenez won the 28th District, according to CBS News projections.

North of Miami-Dade, Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz won reelection in the redrawn 25th District, which Republicans had reshaped in an effort to unseat him, defeating Boca Raton Mayor Scott Singer. Florida's new congressional map changed 21 of the state's 28 districts, and Republicans appeared poised to keep their 20-8 edge in the delegation, WINK News reported.

Down the ballot, Democrats flipped Miami-Dade state House seats as well. Democrat Lucia Baez-Geller defeated Republican Rep. Fabian Basabe in House District 106, and Democrat Gloria Romero Roses won the open House District 113 seat, according to WINK News. Those gains were part of the Democratic surge that ended the Republican supermajority in the Florida House.

What it means for Florida

For Democrats, the results suggest that the Hispanic voters who moved heavily toward Republicans between 2018 and 2024 are no longer locked in, particularly in Miami-Dade. For Republicans, the outcome showed that the party's Hispanic support in Florida, while softer, still delivered enough votes to win statewide in a year DeSantis compared to a meteor strike.

National analysts cautioned against reading the swing as permanent. One analyst quoted in the AP's report said Hispanic voters who moved to Democrats are "on probation," and DeSantis argued that Democrats did not earn a mandate.

What's next

The machine recount in the 27th District, if confirmed by the canvassing board, will determine whether Salazar holds the seat. Final certified results, expected later this month, will give a firmer read on precinct-level shifts, and post-election surveys will show how much of the movement came from Cuban, Venezuelan, Puerto Rican and other Hispanic communities, which have voted differently in past elections.

The next test comes in 2028, when Florida's Hispanic voters will help decide whether the state's Republican lean narrows further or snaps back in a presidential year.