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Two years ago, Chiefer Danks of Rosedale, who works in agriculture, believed the former president would stabilize the economy and make life more affordable again as it was under his first administration. But more than a year into the second Trump administration, Danks isn’t pleased with how things have changed.
Like Danks, many California Latinos feel betrayed by the president’s campaign promises to promptly lower costs and keep the U.S. out of foreign military entanglements — both of which ring hollow as gasoline and grocery prices surge due primarily to Trump’s unpopular war in Iran.
They’re also frightened and outraged that Trump’s second administration has targeted Latino residents — both those here illegally and legally, even U.S. citizens — with violent immigration raids and deportations, separating families in the process.
“I thought he was going to make America great again,” said Danks, 31, as he stood waiting for his wife in El Mercado Latino, a hub for Latino-owned family businesses in the heavily Hispanic neighborhood of East Bakersfield. “He didn’t follow through on his words.”
Public opinion polls and off-year elections have pointed to Latinos reversing their historic 2024 rightward shift toward Trump. And according to a new CalMatters review of 2025 election data, that trend also applies to last year’s special election on redistricting — which Democrats successfully framed as a referendum on Trump.
The analysis of voting results from 57 of California’s 58 counties found that Proposition 50, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to gerrymander the state’s congressional districts in Democrats’ favor, vastly outperformed Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign in precincts where the majority of voters are nonwhite.
The trend was most striking in precincts where the majority of ballots were cast by Latino voters. “Yes” on Prop. 50 gained about 30 percentage points compared to Harris’s performance against Trump a year earlier, according to CalMatters’ analysis.
CalMatters’ findings provide some of the clearest quantitative evidence yet that the Latino rightward shift toward Trump in 2024 was more a blip than a permanent realignment, a nationwide trend that has so far been captured by state and national polling, focus groups and anecdotal evidence.
Voting “Yes” on Prop. 50 was a way for Latinos to channel their pent-up frustration with the Trump administration, said Ben Tulchin, a San Francisco-based Democratic pollster who has conducted several surveys and focus groups with Latino swing voters.
“These Latinos, even the ones who voted for Trump in 2024, were pissed off at him,” Tulchin said. “They feel deceived by Trump and his promises.”
The failure to deliver on economic promises has sown mistrust and bitterness, but Latinos also have felt unfairly targeted by the administration on multiple fronts, including changing the name of the “Gulf of Mexico” to the “Gulf of America,” the high tariffs on goods coming from Mexico and of course the immigration crackdown, Tulchin said.
Danks’ mother-in-law, a green card holder, used to run a fruit stand on a street corner in their neighborhood. But she shut down the business after raids by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement ramped up last year.
“Being Hispanic, and you know, even being a U.S. resident, she doesn't feel safe,” said Lorena Herrera, Danks’ wife, who lives in the U.S. on a work visa. “Nobody's really safe in this country now. It’s really sad.”
Democrats hope they can capitalize on this anti-Trump frustration among Latinos as they work to flip control of one or both chambers of Congress in November. The road to the U.S. House majority likely runs through California, where Latinos could play a decisive role in at least two toss-up seats — one in the Central Valley and the other in San Diego.
But while a strong showing for Prop. 50 might confirm dissatisfaction with the GOP and the Trump administration, it doesn’t necessarily mean those voters will support Democrats — or vote at all.
Interviews with nearly a dozen Latinos in the Central Valley who are eligible to vote highlighted the deep-rooted skepticism of all politicians that often keeps many eligible voters on the sidelines. Even Danks, despite his dissatisfaction with life under a Republican-controlled federal government, did not vote in last year’s special election on Prop. 50 and said he probably would not vote in the midterm elections later this year.
“Was Prop. 50 an indicator of anything ideological or a return home? Nope, not even one little bit,” said Mike Madrid, a conservative political consultant who studies Latino voter behavior. “They're rejecting the party of power that is not prioritizing their economic concerns.”
Cost of living is ‘getting out of hand’
Since Prop. 50 passed last November, the Trump administration has only become less popular with Latino voters, national polling shows, as costs continue to rise for essentials like groceries, utilities and especially gasoline given the ongoing war in Iran.
“It’s getting out of hand,” said Gabriel Gracia, 31, of Tulare who operates a small commercial cleaning business in Woodlake, about 25 miles northeast. All that driving adds up to about two tanks of gas per week — which has risen from about $60 to nearly $85.
“Everything is too expensive,” echoed Monica Rodriguez, 31, another Tulare resident who spoke with CalMatters on a recent afternoon as she walked into Superior Groceries to pick up some ingredients for the chicken larb she was cooking for dinner.
Her family sticks to chicken and pork when they do eat meat, she said, because they often can’t afford beef. She bought a used Honda Fit for its fuel-efficiency since gas prices are so high and she has to drive across town twice a day to take her two sons to and from school.
Rodriguez even said she had considered having a third child since she’d always wanted a daughter, but the cost of diapers, baby formula and other essentials were so high that she decided against it.
Despite her frustration with the cost of living, Rodriguez hasn’t voted recently, sitting out both the 2024 presidential election and the special election on Prop. 50. But she said she might vote in this year’s midterm elections if she can get her sister to help her fill out her ballot.
“I should vote, but I don't because I be stressed out,” Rodriguez said, explaining that she doesn’t always understand who’s running for which office and how to fill out her ballot.
Gracia, who also spoke to CalMatters on his way into Superior Groceries, said he voted for Trump in 2024 because it was “a choice between bad and worse.” He didn’t like how the United States was viewed as a “weak country” under President Joe Biden, and he believed the economy would be better under Trump like it was the first time he was in office.
“His first term was good, so I figured, you know, his second term would be just as good too,” Gracia said. “They sold lies to us, basically. That’s what they do.”
Despite his frustrations, Gracia said he still would’ve voted for Trump since the GOP’s tax policies are friendlier to small business owners like himself. He did not vote on Prop. 50 and said he supports Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco for governor.
Prop. 50 energized the Democratic base
While Prop. 50 served as an outlet for anger for some voters, it also spurred additional turnout among Latino Democrats who found themselves uninspired by Vice President Kamala Harris’s 2024 campaign.
“I just didn't have someone who I could say I resonated with,” said Angel Jimenez, 23, a second-year animal science student at Bakersfield College.
Jimenez said he was so uninspired by the field that he did not vote for president in 2024. As a former supporter of Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump was “definitely not” the candidate for him. Jimenez had considered Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for his environmental platform, but ultimately decided he wasn’t viable. And he didn't like how Democratic Party leadership anointed Harris as Biden’s replacement before the public had a chance to weigh in.
But when Jimenez heard about Prop. 50 and Democrats’ message of fighting back against Trump and Republican redistricting efforts in Texas, he was eager to level the playing field.
“They were gaining an unfair advantage,” Jimenez said of Texas. “I was in favor of evening it out again.”
Jimenez spoke to CalMatters after an on-campus candidate forum for the 22nd Congressional District. Democrat Randy Villegas, who is endorsed by both Sanders and the progressive Working Families Party, was the only candidate who showed up. After the forum, Jimenez signed up to volunteer with the campaign and also inquired about internship opportunities.
Jimenez, who leans more liberal, said the conflict in Iran and how it affects cost of living and affordability will be key factors in how he decides to vote this year.
“The war right now is definitely something that has everything unstable,” he said. “Job security could be affected. The economy in general is being affected.”
This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.
