Latino voters are swinging back toward Democrats for control of Congress in a new NBC-Telemundo survey, and Republican Rep. Carlos Gimenez warns immigration policy has cost the GOP.
Fox News reports that NBC News and Telemundo surveyed 800 registered Latino voters across the country from Sept. 21-28 and found a clear preference for Democratic control of Congress as the midterms approach.
Fifty-nine percent wanted Democrats in charge, compared with 35% who preferred Republicans. That is a 24-point edge. Going into the 2024 elections, Democrats held only a 12-point lead among Latino voters on the same basic question.
The numbers land as both parties fight over the House, the economy, and border enforcement. They also land after several cycles in which Republicans narrowed the gap with Hispanic voters and proved the bloc is no longer a fixed Democratic base.
On President Donald Trump’s job performance, 69% of Latino respondents said they disapprove and 27% said they approve. Roughly 66% said his deportation policies have gone too far. Seventy-five percent said he has mishandled the economy and the cost of living.
The poll carried a margin of error of 3.5% and mixed phone interviews with online surveys sent by text message. It measured registered Latino voters, not a general national sample.
Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., put the political problem in plain terms while discussing the party’s posture on border security and immigration enforcement. Immigration policy, he said, has “cost us a lot” among Hispanic voters.
That warning matters because the same demographic helped reshape recent presidential math. A Just the News account of earlier NBC/Telemundo/CNBC polling showed Trump cutting the Democratic advantage to 54% to 40% among registered Latino voters, a 14-point gap after a 33-point Democratic edge in 2020 and a 38-point edge in 2016, a 19-point gain for Trump since 2020.
Those earlier inroads were real. They were not permanent. The new midterm-facing survey shows how fast a hard-won share of the Latino vote can slip when cost-of-living pain and enforcement politics dominate the conversation.
At a political rally in Dayton, Ohio, on Saturday night, Trump rejected the bleak survey narrative and told supporters that public polls fail to capture what happens when he is on the trail.
Trump said:
"These fake polls, they don't account for one thing. They don't account for the fact that Trump is out campaigning. They never thought this was good. They never thought this was going to happen,"
He tied the fight to past wins with the same coalition of voters who stuck with him when elite forecasts said otherwise.
Trump also said:
"With you at my side, we have always prevailed and prevailed by a lot and got record-setting votes and record-setting victory,"
And he framed the larger stakes this way:
"We've won every battle. We've defeated every hope. We've overcome every threat. And now we are on the cusp of beating the communists, socialist, radicalized lunatics and villains once and for all. We're going to put them down once and for all."
Campaign rhetoric will not, by itself, erase a 24-point deficit on Congress control in a named national survey. It does show the White House argument: turnout, organization, and direct voter contact still decide midterms after the spreadsheets are published.
Context matters. Latino voters have been moving for more than a decade, even when Democrats kept an overall lead.
National Review noted in prior coverage that Democrats were already losing ground with Latino voters while still enjoying a comfortable lead, and that the rapidly growing bloc was increasingly up for grabs without a finished realignment.
House control numbers inside the Republican coalition shifted even more sharply among self-described conservative Hispanics. Breitbart reported a net 65-point swing: from a 9-point Democratic edge on congressional control among conservative Latinos in 2012 to a 56-point Republican advantage in a September 2022 NBC News/Telemundo poll, with 73% of that group preferring GOP control versus 17% for Democrats.
Fox News’ current piece places the longer baseline in view as well. Latino support for a GOP Congress sat at just 21% in 2016 and 26% in 2018. Republicans then made gains with the demographic in 2024 before this latest survey widened the Democratic advantage on Congress again.
Economy remains the hinge. The Washington Examiner tracked earlier NBC-Telemundo-CNBC findings in which Latino voters ranked economic concerns as a top issue while Trump narrowed Democratic margins to their lowest level in four presidential cycles, with Harris at 54% and Trump at 40% among registered Latino voters.
When three-quarters of Latino respondents in the new poll say the economy and cost of living have been mishandled, that is the ballot issue talking. Border policy is not the only line on the page.
Fox News also carried seat projections tied to the broader midterm picture: Democrats at 215 seats and Republicans at 201, with 19 toss-up races left in play. Democrats would need three of those 19 to lock a majority. Republicans would need at least 17.
That is a brutal map for the GOP if Latino preference stays near 59% to 35% for Democratic control. It is also a warning to Democrats not to treat any demographic as settled while prices, crime, and immigration still dominate kitchen-table talk.
Readers tracking other competitive races have already seen how fast a poll snapshot can rattle a party, including a Fox News poll on the Texas Senate race that showed how primary wounds and soft support can stack up before Election Day.
Party discipline on the left is not automatic either. House leadership has had to admit that Democratic Socialists will sit inside a wider caucus, a reminder that a narrow majority comes with factional demands once the gavel is in reach, as when Jeffries addressed Democratic Socialists joining the caucus.
Senate politics are just as brittle. A Florida Democrat publicly signaling she would reject Chuck Schumer as Senate leader fits the same season of restless coalitions and weak institutional loyalty that midterm voters punish when they want results instead of faction fights, including coverage of how Angie Nixon opposed Schumer’s leadership.
Candidate integrity fights can move numbers too. High-profile Democratic Senate controversies give Republicans openings if they stay on wages, schools, and public order instead of assuming demographic destiny will save them, much as the storm around Maine Democrat Graham Platner’s personal accusations showed.
Policy backlash outside Washington follows the same pattern. When voters decide a mandate has gone too far, they say so out loud, the way Californians turned on Newsom’s gas-car ban after living with the costs.
Gimenez’s point was not complicated. If immigration enforcement is explained poorly, or if lawful Hispanic families conclude the policy mix ignores their wages and neighborhoods, Republicans will pay for it at the ballot box.
Secure borders remain a core voter demand across much of the country. So do lower prices and steady work. The NBC-Telemundo sample says a large share of Latino voters currently bundle those issues against the GOP on the generic Congress question.
That is a political fact in the survey, not a verdict on every enforcement tool. It is also a test of whether Republicans treat Hispanic voters as a persuasion target with jobs, safety, and schools at the center, or as a box to check after the ads are cut.
Democrats, for their part, would be foolish to read a 59% figure as loyalty restored for a generation. The same voters moved toward Trump in recent cycles when inflation and disorder were impossible to spin away. A midterm rebound in one poll does not freeze the map.
The practical question for conservatives is simpler than the cable chatter. Can the party defend enforcement, cut living costs, and talk to Latino households as workers and parents who want order and opportunity? The survey says the current answer, among these respondents, is not good enough.
Trump is betting that campaign contact still outweighs a week of phone and text samples. Gimenez is betting that ignoring the sticker shock of bad Hispanic numbers is a luxury the party does not have. Both can be true at once.
Midterms punish coalitions that get complacent. Hispanic voters have already shown they will reward results and walk away from lectures. The party that remembers that first will own the next swing, not the one that pretends any poll is destiny or that any bloc is locked up for good.