Almost as soon as next month’s elections are over, arguments will begin about the lessons and implications for 2028. But one conclusion is already undeniable: Latinos are America’s new swing voters.

If Democrats win control of Congress in November, it will be in large part because the Latino voters President Donald Trump captured in historic numbers in 2024 have abandoned him. And if Democrats don’t act decisively on two fronts — the economy and immigration — these voters will be up for grabs again in 2028.

Latinos make up more than 20% of the U.S. population, and a growing number are demonstrating little allegiance to either party. In the last several midterm elections, Latino voters have supported Democrats by sizable margins. That was also true of presidential elections until 2024, when Trump captured a historic 48% of their vote.

These voters were drawn to Trump primarily by his promise to ease their economic frustrations. But many Latino voters work in industries that rely on cross-border trade — construction, agriculture and manufacturing — and are squeezed by Trump’s ill-conceived tariffs and the inflated costs of groceries, gasoline and healthcare.

An NBC/Telemundo poll released Sunday found that 74% of Latino voters disapprove of Trump’s management of the economy and 78% disapprove of the way he’s handled cost-of-living concerns. A CBS News/YouGov poll also released Sunday found 74% of Hispanic voters disapproved of his handling of inflation.

Just as the movement toward Trump in 2024 cut across regions, genders, age and country of origin, so does the movement away from Trump this year. But it’s a mistake to assume these voters’ allegiance to Democrats is permanent.

Polls show Latino voters willing to support individual Democrats, but they also show “a broad movement away, institutionally, from the parties,” says Mike Madrid, a political consultant who has been chronicling the shifting alignment of Latino voters for nearly two decades. He predicts that what he calls “Latino populism” will be “a defining characteristic of American democracy” going forward.

One of the most common strains of populism is economic, and in fact poll after poll shows Latino voters favoring Democrats over Republicans on the economy. But if the Democratic Party wants to deepen its appeal to Latino voters, it needs to start owning the debate over the issue they see as second only to the economy: immigration.

At least two Democrats are making the moral case for the importance of immigration to the future of the country and why Trump’s anti-immigration crackdown is a drag on the economy.

In Texas, Senate candidate James Talarico is doing something few in his party have dared to do: Make the case for “more legal pathways” for immigrants to live and work in the country. In Iowa, Senate candidate Josh Turek has said he wants a “safe and secure border” but has also called for a “pathway to earn citizenship, especially in a state where you have very little population growth.”

There are now so many incidents of workers being summarily removed from construction sites, nursing homes and farms by ICE agents they no longer generate headlines. Millions of immigrants live in legal limbo because of the administration’s indiscriminate and inhumane policies. But while Republicans have clearly gone too far, Democrats have mostly fallen short.

A recent survey by the policy and research firm Unidos of 3,000 registered Latino voters of both parties, nationally and across 32 competitive congressional districts, found that while their top priorities in November are pocketbook issues, they also want to hear about immigration. In a September survey of Latino voters in battleground states for the American Business Immigration Coalition and American Families United, 63% cited the treatment of immigrants as one of their top issues.

Overall, Latino voters say the immigration system is broken — and 64% of Republicans, 68% of independents and 85% of Democrats support providing work permits and legal status for long-term undocumented residents. More than 70% support a new policy to strengthen border security while providing work permits for millions of long-term undocumented immigrants who are working and can pass a background check.

“The majority of Latino voters who supported Trump believed that he was going to narrowly focus deportation efforts on people with violent criminal backgrounds and on people who had recently arrived to the country,’’ said María Isabel Di Franco Quiñonez, a senior research director for the research firm Equis, on a recent call with reporters.

These voters have now come to realize that trust was misplaced. Instead of fixing the border and repairing the dysfunctional immigration system, Trump has focused on deporting parents, long-time and law-abiding workers, and the spouses of U.S. citizens.

Unidos has held listening sessions around the country with community-based organizations and heard a consistent concern, said Clarissa Martínez De Castro, vice president of its Latino Vote Initiative: They are “constantly subjected to harassment and abuse,” she said, even though eight in 10 Latinos in the U.S. are citizens.

Massey Villarreal, the CEO of Houston-based information technology firm Precision Task Group, told reporters last month that he and many people he knows carry their U.S. passports in case they encounter ICE. “We, the Hispanic voters, are fed up,’’ he added. Villarreal is part of a bipartisan coalition of 250 business, religious, political and community leaders who last month signed a letter demanding Washington find working solutions for long-term undocumented immigrants.

“You built the wall, but can someone please fix the door? Because the entry exit system is broken,’’ said Pastor Tony Suarez, vice president for the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. Latino leaders, he said, are aware of their political clout: “We’re not going away.”

It’s a reality Democrats would be foolish to ignore. The challenge is not a lack of policy solutions. It’s a question of political will.

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This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Mary Ellen Klas is a politics and policy columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. A former capital bureau chief for the Miami Herald, she has covered politics and government for more than three decades.

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