G.O.P. Bets Big on Latino Voters With New Texas Map

The South Texas border town of Laredo lies hundreds of miles from Austin, the state capital, and more than a thousand from Chicago, where many Democratic lawmakers from Texas flew on Sunday in an attempt to block the adoption of a gerrymandered new congressional map.

But as far as they are from the political action this week, towns like Laredo along the Southwestern border are crucial to Republicans’ plans to flip five of Texas’ U.S. House seats from blue to red.

Texas Republicans are hoping that the surge of Hispanic support for President Trump in 2024, which was especially sharp in South Texas, will last through the 2026 midterm elections. They also hope that voters, Hispanic or not, in districts like the currently Democratic one around Laredo will not be overly angry about the Republicans’ aggressive mid-decade redistricting push, a hardball tactic to retain power in Washington that is being pressed by Mr. Trump.

More than a dozen conversations with voters in South Texas over the weekend showed that neither hope is a sure thing.

“The Republican Party is going to lose a lot of votes around here,” said Ricardo Sandoval, 35, a trucking and warehousing businessman in Laredo who supported Mr. Trump in November.

Mr. Sandoval said he agreed with Mr. Trump’s campaign promises for tax cuts, tariffs on China and an immigration crackdown along the border. But now, he said, he feels he was misled. The roller coaster of on-again-off-again tariffs has depressed cross-border trade and upended his business, pushed prices up and forced him to lay off more than a dozen employees. Mr. Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement actions have been disrespectful to the thousands of Hispanics who supported him, Mr. Sandoval said. And he said the Republicans’ redistricting effort in Texas was an unethical way to try to hold onto power.

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Nationally, about a third of Latinos who voted for Mr. Trump in November say they are not set on voting for a Republican in 2026, according to a survey conducted in July by Equis Research. And some 64 percent of Latinos who were surveyed rated the economy as either somewhat or very poor.

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In 2024, Mr. Trump made remarkable inroads in South Texas. He won 12 of the 14 counties along the border with Mexico, compared with just five of them in 2016.

Now, Republicans want to press that advantage by shifting Trump voters like Christina Medina, 53, into the 28th District, now represented by Henry Cuellar, a Democrat. Ms. Medina, a speech therapist, lives in Carrizo Springs, about 80 miles north of Laredo, which is currently part of the safely Republican 23rd District.

The Democratic Party’s focus on social issues like transgender rights “is contrary to what many people believe,” Ms. Medina said. South Texans are generally tolerant of other people, she added, but do not want to have certain beliefs “pushed on them.”

Democrats insist that Mr. Trump’s 2024 performance among Latinos in South Texas was a high-water mark, whether or not the redistricting succeeds. Sylvia Bruni, who chairs the Democratic Party in Webb County, which includes Laredo, said she expected discontent to grow as voters experience the impact of Republican-led cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps. About 22 percent of Laredo residents live in poverty, according to the Census Bureau.

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Democrats have charged that the proposed district maps would disenfranchise voters of color. But Republicans have defended the maps, saying that four of the five seats they hope to flip have been drawn with Hispanic majorities. Implicit in that defense is the assumption by the Republicans that those Hispanic majorities will stand by the G.O.P. next year.

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