Latino voters cast ballots in a recent election.
Latino voters cast ballots in a recent election. Credit: Shutterstock / Alan Mazzocco

Texas Latino voters have soured on President Donald Trump as he ramps up harsh immigration actions and fails to deliver on economic promises, according to new polling data from a one of the nation’s largest Latino civil-rights groups.

Numbers released by the organization UnidosUS show that just 14% of Texas Latino voters support the Trump administration’s approach to immigration and deportations, while a meager 20% said their economic situation has improved over the past year.

The numbers suggest that the San Antonio area’s heavily Latino 35th and 23rd Congressional Districts are legitimately in play for Democrats, political strategist Bert Santibañez of Flagship Campaigns told the Current.

“It’s paramount for Latino voters to show up as they did in the primaries,” Santibañez said. “It’s not just immigration, though. It is obviously critical and grabs headlines, but it’s also certainly the economy that weighs heavily on working-class Latinos.”

The recently redrawn 35th — which now includes Bexar County’s exurbs along with Guadalupe, Wilson and Karnes counties — is already on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) watchlist as a district up for grabs.

District 35 would have swung by 10 points for Trump during the previous presidential election. However, the president would have won the district as it’s drawn today by fewer than two points during the 2020 election.

To seize on that opportunity, the DCCC appears poised to back former Bexar County Sheriff’s Office public information officer Johnny Garcia, a moderate, against his far-left opponent, Maureen Galindo, the district’s Democratic runoff.

Although the DCCC hasn’t formally added the 23rd to its list of “districts in play,” Santibañez speculated that may happen soon.

In that district, U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, the GOP incumbent, dropped from his runoff as he faced growing outrage over his now-confirmed affair with staffer Regina Santos-Aviles, a woman who took her own life by setting herself on fire last September.

Gonzales’ primary opponent, far-right gun influencer Brandon Herrera, also known as the “AK Guy,” has plenty of baggage of his own in the form of problematic online comments. He’s set to take on Democrat Katy Padilla Stout, a former teacher, in the general election.

“Now that it’s an open seat and there’s not an incumbent, I think that makes that district more appealing [to Democrats],” Santibañez said.

Despite all the drama the 23rd District, which spans from San Antonio to El Paso, Santibañez maintains that elections in West Texas still come down to real issues more than personalities.

“If people are upset and outraged over affordability, then I think they’ll make their voice heard at the ballot box for sure,” he said. “There are a lot of farms and agricultural businesses, so tariffs and the price of food are going to be really impactful in a district like that.”

One underreported, “sleeper” issue in the campaigns for both districts could be candidates’ stances on AI data centers, Santibañez added.

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Michael Karlis is a multimedia journalist at the San Antonio Current, whose coverage in print and on social media focuses on local and state politics. He is a graduate of American University in Washington,...