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President Donald Trump’s favorability has fallen among Latino adults since the beginning of the year, a new AP-NORC poll shows, a potential warning sign from a key constituency that helped secure his victory in the 2024 election. The October survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that 25% of Latino adults have a “somewhat” or “very” favorable view of Trump, down from 44% in an AP-NORC poll conducted just before the Republican took office for the second time. The percentage who say the country is going in the wrong direction has also increased over the past few months, from 63% in March to 73% now. The shift could spell trouble for Republicans looking to cement support with this group in future elections. Many Latino voters were motivated by economic concerns in last year’s election, and the new poll shows that despite Trump’s promises of economic revitalization, Latino adults continue to feel higher financial stress than Americans overall. Those voters made up 10% of the electorate in 2024, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of interviews with registered voters, and the number of eligible Latinos has been growing rapidly in recent decades. Alejandro Ochoa, 30, is a warehouse worker in Adelanto. He identifies as a Republican and voted for Trump last year, but he’s now unhappy with the president. He criticized some of the president’s budget cuts, adding that the cost of groceries is too high and buying a home is still unattainable for him. “He was kind of relying on essentially the nostalgia of, ‘Hey, remember, before COVID? Things weren’t as expensive,’” Ochoa said. “But now it’s like, OK, you’re in office. I’m still getting done dirty at the grocery store. I’m still spending an insane amount of money. I’m trying to cut corners where I can, but that bill is still insanely expensive.” Declining approval on economy, immigration Latino voters shifted toward Trump in the last election, though a majority still backed Democrat Kamala Harris: 43% of Latino voters nationally voted for Trump, according to AP VoteCast, up from 35% in the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. But the poll now finds that Latino adults are slightly less likely to approve of Trump’s handling of the economy and immigration — two issues that were major strengths for him in last year’s presidential campaign — and their views of his overall presidential performance have slipped a little as well. In March, 41% of Latino adults approved of the way Trump was handling his job as president, but now that has fallen to 27%. Over the past few months, Latino communities have also been a target of the president’s hard-line immigration tactics. The poll found that Latino adults’ approval of his handling of immigration has declined slightly since March. Some see the two issues as linked. Trump’s attacks on immigration have affected low-wage and high-skilled workers alike, at a moment when the economy is already uncertain because of his erratic trade policies. Fel Echandi, of Winter Haven, Florida, is a behavioral specialist who identifies as a Democrat but sometimes votes for Republican candidates. He said he appreciates Trump’s views on transgender issues, including restroom access for transgender women. But he’s concerned that Trump’s immigration policies leave many people living in fear, with negative effects on the economy. “A lot of people rely on immigrants to do labor in certain areas,” Echandi said. “When that gets affected, all prices go up. Our food costs more because of the costs to get people to do that work.” The poll found particularly high levels of financial stress among Latino adults, compared with the rest of the country. More say the cost of groceries, housing and health care and the amount of money they get paid are “major” sources of stress, compared with U.S. adults overall. Favorability among Latino Republicans drops Views of Trump have even soured a little among Republicans. In the latest poll, 66% of Latino Republicans said they have a “very” or “somewhat” favorable view of Trump. That’s a shift compared with where Trump stood in an AP-NORC poll from September 2024, when 83% viewed him at least “somewhat” favorably. About 8 in 10 white Republicans had a favorable view of Trump in the new poll, which was unchanged from the year before. In another potentially worrying sign for the president, younger Latinos and men — two groups that swung particularly dramatically toward him in last year’s election — also see him more negatively. About two-thirds of adults under age 45 and men now view Trump unfavorably, according to the new poll. That’s a slight uptick from September 2024, when about half in both groups had a negative opinion of him. Other concerns about Trump’s chaotic second term emerged in interviews. Teresa Covarrubias, a 65-year-old retired schoolteacher from Los Angeles, feels things are going in the wrong direction and said she was troubled by how some of Trump’s actions have defied norms and may impact social safety net programs. “My major concern is the disregard for the Constitution and the law, and then also the level of cronyism,” said Covarrubias, who is an independent voter. “The people at the top are just grifting and taking, and then there’s the rest of us.” More likely to prioritize immigration There are signs in the poll that Trump’s tough immigration approach may be alienating some Latino adults. Over the past few months, the president has doubled down on his pledge of mass deportations, with escalating crackdowns in Latino neighborhoods in cities including Chicago. The poll found that, in general, Latino adults are more likely to say immigration is an important issue to them personally. About two-thirds prioritize immigration, compared with about 6 in 10 white adults and about half of Black adults. And although their views on immigration enforcement aren’t uniform, Latino adults are much less likely than U.S. adults overall to favor deporting all immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. About one-quarter support this policy, the new poll found, while roughly half of them are opposed and the rest don’t have an opinion. Among U.S. adults overall, about 4 in 10 favor deporting all immigrants in the U.S. illegally, while 34% are opposed and about 2 in 10 don’t have an opinion. Rick Alvarado, 63, a Republican who lives in San Diego, says he still supports Trump and praised his actions to cut public spending. Alvarado, a property manager, is behind Trump’s immigration crackdown in cities including Los Angeles and Chicago, saying he believes some immigrants are involved in organized crime. But he added that he would like to see a solution for those without criminal records to obtain legal residency status. “The people who are productive should have a pathway to stay here somehow,” Alvarado said. The AP-NORC poll of 1,289 adults was conducted Oct. 9-13, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points. The margin of sampling error for Latino adults overall is plus or minus 6.9 percentage points.
