House Republicans on Offense in Key Hispanic Districts in South Texas
As House Republicans are continuing to earn the votes and trust of Latino voters, Democrats are being put on defense in key battleground districts with large Hispanic populations in South Texas, according to a new report.
Latino voters helped power GOP gains in 2024, including TX-28 and TX-34, where House Democrats barely held on.
Democrats are clinging to a false sense of security, but the numbers, and the momentum, are against them. Just look at the shift from this past election cycle:
- TX-34: GOP shift of +8.3 points
- TX-28: GOP shift of +5.1 points
- Latino vote for Trump: +45%, up sharply from 2012’s 27% for Romney
“House Republicans are on offense, and we’re taking the fight to the heart of battleground Hispanic districts in South Texas. The trend is clear: Hispanic Americans are rejecting Democrats’ fixation on radical policies and embracing our vision for economic freedom, safer communities, and the American Dream.” — NRCC Spokesman Zach Bannon
Read more from NOTUS here or see experts below:
House Republicans Are Targeting Three Districts For Their Hispanic Voters
NOTUS
Daniella Diaz and Alex Roarty
May 13, 2025
Republicans think Hispanic voters are key to keeping the House majority in 2026.
The National Republican Congressional Committee is targeting three House districts held by Democrats for their significant Hispanic populations in the hopes they can flip the seats Republican in 2026.
All three of the districts featured narrow wins by Democrats: Reps. Vicente Gonzalez in Texas’ 34th District, Henry Cuellar in Texas’ 28th District and Nellie Pou in New Jersey’s 9th District. In targeting these seats, House Republicans are betting they can improve on the party’s strong showing with Latino voters in 2024 — their best in decades — even when President Donald Trump isn’t on the ballot and in districts where the party’s candidates have underperformed the president in previous races.
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The fight over Latino voters will be front and center in next year’s elections as both parties fight for a House majority. The Latino community has more persuadable voters — those open to either party — than any other group of voters, Democratic strategist Chuck Rocha said.
“The biggest factor in the election will be the Latino vote,” he said. “They will literally determine who controls both chambers of Congress.”
After Republicans hit a low point with Hispanic voters during the 2012 election, in which exit polls showed presidential nominee Mitt Romney winning only 27% of their vote, the party slowly made gains with Latinos in the following years and through Trump’s first term. The GOP’s progress accelerated, however, after Trump left office in 2021, culminating with him winning 45% of the Latino vote last year.
Pundits spent the weeks after the 2024 election analyzing Trump’s gains with Latino voters, attributing his campaign’s stance on border security, immigration and the economy as the main issues for why this demographic turned out to hand him back the White House.
“It’s the same two issues – the economy, and border security and immigration,” Helder Toste, a conservative political commentator, told NOTUS. “Especially the economy and inflation. And many Latinos remembered their personal experience under the Trump presidency.”
In particular, Texas’ 34th and 28th districts and New Jersey’s 9th District have all shifted right in the last election cycle: Texas’ 34th District with an 8.3-point GOP shift, Texas’ 28th District with a 5.1-point GOP shift and New Jersey’s 9th District with a 6.4-point GOP shift, according to the Cook Political Report Partisan Voting Index.
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