Voters’ Regret: Support for Trump Plunges in South Texas

“People are starting to have a realization that what they were promised isn’t going to come to fruition and they were lied to ..."

Port Isabel residents protest against ICE raids in front of the city's lighthouse in February 2025. (Photo credit: Gaige Davila)

It was one of the biggest surprises of the 2024 presidential election. The traditionally Democratic Rio Grande Valley, home to a majority Hispanic population, voted for Trump in each of its four counties in South Texas. Since then, a wave of immigration raids has created fear and anxiety and decimated the local economy, with some businesses reporting a 90 percent drop in customers.

Now a weakened economy and deep cuts to popular social programs are causing some South Texas Trump supporters to reconsider their vote, especially as the region braces for cuts to after-school programs, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps), Medicaid, college tuition grants, and more—all thanks to Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.” Additional funding cuts to federal programs by Elon Musk, the Trump-appointed former head of DOGE, will further slash local programs across housing, agriculture, libraries, and more.

On top of these cuts, the administration announced its plan last week to end college funding for the federal “Hispanic Serving Institutions” program, of which the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley is a member and grant recipient.

Instead, billions in taxpayer money are being transferred to the military and the Department of Homeland Security to build detention camps, hire more armed agents, build border walls, and further militarize communities. In June, the banks of the Rio Grande were declared a military zone by the Trump administration, even as cities in the region remain some of the safest in the country and migrant crossings hit the lowest numbers “in recorded history,” according to DHS. Rio Grande Valley families who previously camped on the banks of the river or kayaked in its waters for generations may lose access as the military has installed signs declaring the river off-limits.

Eric Holguin, state director for UnidosUS—a nonpartisan national policy and advocacy organization for Hispanic issues—says that while it will take time to feel the full effects of mass deportations and social program cuts, voters in the Rio Grande Valley are already aware of the implications. The mood in the region among Trump supporters has notably shifted since November.

“They’re angry about a lot of it, and it also stems from the blatant corruption that they saw happening with Elon Musk and Trump previously that’s still probably going on,” said Holguin. “These are people who have the traditional John McCain and Bush Republican values, and they see those values being completely obliterated by the current iteration of the Republican Party.”

City and industry leaders in the Rio Grande Valley joined the American Business Immigration Coalition to urge the Trump administration to reduce ICE raids in the region. (Photo credit: Eric Holguin, UnidosUS)

Last week, Holguin joined a roundtable of border officials and industry leaders hosted by the American Business Immigration Coalition, which included key stakeholders in agriculture, construction, and real estate. The participants urged Trump “to pass sensible federal immigration solutions” for the region.

The discussion included the Republican mayor of McAllen, Javier Villalobos, who said in June that the “general consensus” in the Rio Grande Valley is that “people posing a danger to our national security” should be deported, but that “people on either side of the political spectrum have quickly realized that we need human labor.”

In the Rio Grande Valley, about 65 percent of workers in agriculture and construction are foreign born, according to an analysis released in September by the American Immigration Council, a national nonprofit that provides research and advocacy on immigration issues. The organization also reported that about 130,000 workers without legal status in the Rio Grande Valley contribute upwards of $144 million in yearly taxes and $1.6 billion in spending to the local community.

The dramatic increase in ICE raids in the Rio Grande Valley has brought a chilling effect, not just to undocumented workers but to mixed-status Hispanic families, damaging the local economy. Recently, the Trump administration argued in court that ICE should be allowed to arrest people based on the fact that they speak Spanish or speak English with an accent.

“You have an undocumented population who, if they’re still working, are coming straight home,” said Holguin. “They’re not stopping at Whataburger or the taquerias anymore. And because those businesses are suffering, sales tax revenues that are supposed to be coming to the municipalities are declining pretty rapidly.”

Holguin said the ICE raids have also had an impact on the cost of labor. Workers, especially in construction, who have the paperwork needed to be contracted legally are dramatically increasing their rates as home builders become more desperate for workers. This has contributed to rising home prices in the region. For citizens, the effects of Trump’s mass deportations have become more apparent, as they see the increased prices, labor shortages, and reduced sales tax revenues, on top of funding cuts across the programs they depend on.

But Holguin says the promise of lower prices and a better economy led many in the region, especially first-time GOP voters, to support Trump in 2024. Still, he says, most Rio Grande Valley Republicans who are wary of Trump’s policies are not fully reconsidering their support for Trump just yet.

“People are starting to have a realization that what they were promised isn’t going to come to fruition and they were lied to, but many still wouldn’t call themselves Democrats,” said Holguin.

To understand why some Hispanics in the region still support Trump’s MAGA platform, especially while every county in the region voted for Democrats in every other race, it helps to look at local investment from national parties in recent years.

Danny Diaz, a Hidalgo County Democratic precinct chair, says years of heavy investment from national Republican groups, along with lackluster support from the Democratic Party, is a significant factor in local Trump support.

“The Rio Grande Valley didn’t just trend with the rest of the nation by increasing their historical share of Republican votes on the presidential ticket,” said Diaz. “But you also had strong organizing on national issues from Republican PACs in the region going back to 2012. At the same time, national Democrats looked at a historically blue region as a sure bet and drastically underinvested for years.”

The 2024 split ticket, red on top yet blue all the way down, reflects the reality Diaz suggests, with the traditionally blue streak in the valley holding steady but showing over a decade of red money on top.

Diaz also notes changes to religious traditions in the region fueled by political cash. While many in the Rio Grande Valley are Catholic, Diaz says “politics from the pulpit” was never a strong Catholic tradition in the region.

Instead, he has seen outside Republican groups introduce political traditions from Protestant and evangelical churches, mixing politics and faith in ways that never existed before on the border.

This points to a political anchor deeply ingrained by long-term influences that may not easily loosen their hold.

Still, Diaz highlights how many years and significant amounts of cash it took to achieve what was ultimately a slim margin of votes over Kamala Harris. “If people in the Rio Grande Valley were truly excited about the Republican platform, it wouldn’t take such a huge effort and so much cash to get what is still some of the lowest voter turnout,” said Diaz.

Both Diaz and Holguin noted the current GOP effort to redraw congressional districts in Texas to heavily favor Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections as proof of declining voter support for Trump’s MAGA agenda.

“A lot of conservative Latino men are moderate Republicans, like Mayor Villalobos, who generally agree with a Republican platform, but just think that how aggressive they’ve gone on these issues is just too much to bear for them,” said Diaz. “I think Republicans see that 2026 is going to be very bad for them. Most people here are not happy with Trump right now.”

Despite current trends, Diaz says that results in the 2026 midterms will depend on how much support national Democrats are willing to give the Rio Grande Valley.

Diaz and Holguin agree that some of the Republican base in South Texas has not aligned with the sentiments of many GOP voters, especially first-time supporters and moderates who propelled Trump to the White House last year.

Chelsea Howell-Garcia, vice chair of the Rio Grande Valley–based Republican National Hispanic Assembly of Texas, said she “did not know of any” Republicans who were concerned about current federal policies.

“You can’t just blame one administration,” said Howell-Garcia. “Things were broken under Biden, and they were broken under Obama. What Trump is doing right now is fixing the mess that Biden left behind with his open border policies.” Howell-Garcia also urged patience with the current administration, saying the Rio Grande Valley must “pick itself up by its bootstraps.”

When asked for a specific example of a Biden policy that led to immigration enforcement funding cuts, Howell said the interview was biased and hung up.

Holguin noted that some Republican officials in the region haven’t found a clear strategy for addressing local concerns with their more moderate voters.

“The vibe with Republicans in the valley right now,” said Holguin, “is that there’s this elephant in the room that they know they need to address, but they’re too afraid to address it in a way that will make them seem disloyal to Trump. They still identify with that political group. And so I think they’re still trying to figure out how to talk about these issues here without disenfranchising their base voters.”