Samuel Benson and Alex Hernandez report “Latino voters powered Trump’s comeback. Now they’re turning on his economy” at Politico, and write: “In 2024, economic anxiety and immigration concerns drove Latino voters to President Donald Trump. Those same issues are beginning to push them away…Across the country, the cost-of-living woes and immigration enforcement overshadowing Trump’s first year back in office are souring Hispanic businesspeople, a key constituency that helped propel him to the White House. In a recent survey of Hispanic business owners conducted by the U.S. Hispanic Business Council and shared exclusively with POLITICO, 42 percent said their economic situation is getting worse, while only 24 said it was getting better. Seventy percent of respondents ranked the cost of living as a top-three issue facing the country, more than double the number that selected any other issue…In 2024, Trump won 48 percent of self-described Hispanic or Latino voters, the highest mark for a Republican presidential candidate in at least a half-century, driven largely by economic anxiety. But polling shows Trump’s approval among Latino voters cratering as their satisfaction with the economy and immigration enforcement plummet…In a November POLITICO Poll, a plurality — 48 percent — of Hispanic respondents said the cost of living in the U.S. is “the worst I can ever remember it being,” and a majority (67 percent) said responsibility lies with the president to fix it…According to a November Pew Research poll, about two-thirds (68 percent) of U.S. Hispanics say their situation today is worse than it was a year ago, and just nine percent say it is better; 65 percent of Latinos disagree with this administration’s approach to immigration, and a majority (52 percent) said they worried they, a family member or a close friend could be deported, a ten-point increase since March…Trump’s favorability rating among Hispanics is now at 28 percent, per a recent The Economist/YouGov poll, 13 points lower than it was in February of last year.” More here.

At Brookings, William A. Galston explains why “The economy weakened support for President Trump in 2025 and may do so again in 2026“: “Driven largely by public discontent over persistently high prices, approval of Donald Trump’s performance as president declined substantially in 2025. What the public saw as the president’s inadequate focus on the economy made things worse. At the same time, many of Trump’s disappointed 2024 supporters could shift back toward him if the economy improves…At year’s end, the president’s overall job approval averaged about 43%. He does reasonably well on immigration, crime, and foreign affairs—the issues that dominated his first year in office. He does much worse on the economy (41%), inflation(36%), and health care (32%).¹ Unfortunately for him, the people care more about the latter list than the former: 66% of Americans identify either the economy, inflation, or health care as the top issue facing the country, while 24% pick one of the issues to which the president has devoted most attention…Economic concerns remain dominant, and the public’s assessment offers the president little encouragement. Only 27% rate the state of the economy as excellent or good, compared to 72% who evaluate it as fair or poor. Eighteen percent say that they are better off, but 36% say the reverse. Twenty-three percent think the economy is improving, but 53% say that it is getting worse…This helps explain why almost six in 10 Americans say that President Trump is focusing on the wrong things. Only 16%think that he is spending most of his time on domestic issues, and the invasion and possible occupation of Venezuela won’t help those numbers. Seventy-three percent say that he is not spending enough time working to lower prices…The public’s perception of misplaced priorities has consequences. Only 38% believe that Trump cares about “people like you,” while 62% think that he does not.”

Galston continues, “Economic expectations for 2026 are not bright. Most Americans think that tariffs will continue to push up prices, and only one-third believe that their family’s finances will improve, down from 48% last June. Twenty-three percent think that the economy is getting better, compared to 53% who think that it is getting worse…Increased public confidence in Democrats’ ability to manage the economy has contributed to the 4.5-point edge Democrats now enjoy in the midterm vote for the House of Representatives. Still, 40% of the electorate is willing to change its mind about Trump’s job performance, and they overwhelmingly cite the economy as the issue that could move them. If this happens, Republicans’ prospects in the midterm elections would brighten…There is some evidence that the first year of Trump’s second term could have longer-term consequences for the American party system. After the 2024 election, analysts speculated about a realignment that would transform Republicans into a multi-ethnic, populist, working-class party. Now this prospect seems remote. Many of the groups that moved strongly toward the Republicans in 2024—independents, Hispanics, young adults—have moved away and should be regarded as swing voters…Republicans’ populist credentials have been tarnished. Sixty-five percent of the people think that the Trump administration’s policies favor the wealthy, compared to just 12% who think they are oriented toward the middle class. Not surprisingly, populist sentiments remain strong. Eighty-one percent of Americans, including 66% of Republicans, believe that the rich in the U.S. have too much power. Sixty-two percent say that taxes on billionaires are too low. Fifty-seven percent believe that the government should try to reduce the wealth gap between the rich and the poor…Progress is another core element of the creed. Each generation is supposed to do better than the last. But now, only 15% of Americans believe that today’s children will grow up to be better off than their parents, while 51% think that they will be worse off. Republicans and conservatives share this pessimism.”

In “A New Low for American Workers: The share of American income going to labor is at its lowest level since measurements began,” Harold Meyerson writes at The American Prospect: “Figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released earlier this month show that the labor share of the nation’s GDP hit the lowest point it’s been at since the BLS began measuring such things in 1947. In that year, the labor share—that is, the pay and benefits that American workers claimed—stood at 70 percent of the nation’s income, with the remaining balance going to profits and other investment income…In the third quarter of 2025, the labor share stood at 53.8 percent. That means that the share of the nation’s income going to workers over the past 78 years has declined by roughly 16 percent, as the share going to investors has grown by the same amount…It’s not all that hard to identify the reasons behind America’s epochal transformation from a nation that honors work to a nation that honors investment. In 1947 America, when the labor share stood at 70 percent, more than one-third of the workforce was unionized, and taxes on the highest incomes routinely exceeded 70 percent. But for the heirs of the Rockefellers and the Fords, we were billionaire-poor, even as record numbers of working-class Americans found themselves, for the first time, able to buy houses…It’s only been in the past 10 or 15 years—beginning with the emergence of Occupy Wall Street and Bernie Sanders’s first presidential campaign—that the existence of this redistribution became widely visible as a national problem. Today, however, with the crises of affordability in housing, health care, education, and even food affecting scores of millions of Americans, we’re beginning to see a politics—potentially, a majoritarian politics—devoted to curtailing this upward redistribution and bringing some of the nation’s income back to those who actually do its work.”