In his latest NYT essay, “Has Trump Thrown the Democrats a Lifesaver?,” Thomas B. Edsall writes: “The 2024 election likely illuminated longstanding trepidation among Black voters about the Democratic Party,” Candis Watts Smith, a political scientist at Duke, wrote by email in response to my questions…“As an increasing number of Black people feel a sense of distance from the civil rights era and/or suffer from a lack of understanding of structural racism,” Smith said, “we would expect an increasing number of Black voters to rely on some other decision-making rules — be it self-interest, sexism, anti-immigrant sentiment, machismo, prosperity Gospel or misinformation.”…What does the future look like for Black voting? Udi Sommer, a political scientist at Tel Aviv University and an author of the 2025 book “The Emerging Republican Minorities: Racial and Ethnic Realignment in the Trump Era,” wrote by email: “As we approach November 2026, the Republican Party faces a paradox. While they have successfully demystified the idea of voting Republican for a segment of Black men, they are struggling to maintain that momentum as the reality of Trump’s second-term policies takes hold (e.g., deportations, inflation and federal-state friction)…The 2024 election signaled the end of racial tribalism in voting: the idea that a group must vote as a monolith to protect its interests. It did not, however, signal a permanent migration to the G.O.P. Rather, it created a competitive marketplace where Democrats must now earn Black votes through performance rather than historical loyalty.”…In her August 2025 paper, “Beyond the Bloc: Black Voter Subgroups & Declining Democratic Support,” Arica Schuett, a doctoral candidate in political science at Emory University, made the case that a new generation of Black voters with weaker ties to the civil rights movement is changing African American partisanship…“Black Americans who came of age during or shortly after the civil rights movement now cast fewer votes as a result of generational turnover,” Schuett wrote. “Weakening sociopolitical norms — specifically, a decline in the social pressures that have historically reinforced Democratic voting among Black Republicans and conservatives.”…To buttress her argument, Schuett pointed out, “Today, half of the Black population was born after 1990, ushering in a cohort too young to vote in Obama’s first election or to have experienced 20th-century race-conscious policies.”

“How about Latino voters?, asks Edsall. “The evidence from elections held in 2025 suggests that Hispanic support for Republicans will drop from 2024 levels, but how much remains uncertain…Marcel Roman, a political scientist at Harvard, wrote by email: “Precinct-level analysis of predominantly Latino areas in New Jersey and Virginia during the 2025 elections shows large swings back to the Democratic Party, which may generalize to the 2026 and 2028 elections if Trump maintains his current course.”…Roman cited data showing how Taylor Rehmet, a Democratic State Senate candidate in Texas, won decisively, carrying the district’s Hispanic electorate at 79 percent, compared with Kamala Harris’s 53 percent in 2024…Along similar line, Roman pointed to “Latino State of Play: 2025 Elections and New Equis Polling,” a report combining analysis with a late-October survey of Hispanic voters in heavily Latino congressional districts conducted by Equis…The report found: “The administration’s overreach on immigration has been a clear driver of discontent for many Latino voters. Both in July and October polls, immigration enforcement policies such as workplace raids and allowing ICE agents to use masks and civilian clothes during arrests were some of Trump’s least popular policies among Hispanic voters…In the most recent poll, the majority of Latinos disagreed with deploying troops to cities to assist with immigration enforcement (62 percent disagree) and increasing work visa fees to reduce the number of immigrant workers (60 percent).

Edsall notes further, “Compared with the Catalist estimate that Harris barely won among Latino voters, 51 to 49 percent, Equis found that Democrats in October 2025 held “a double-digit lead over Republicans (54-36) among Latino voters in competitive congressional districts.”…On a cautionary note for Democrats, the report also reported that “despite dissatisfaction with the Trump administration, Democrats have not managed to improve their favorability among Latinos (45 fav./45 unfav.) in the past three months.”…There are clear indications that Trump’s loss of support among Latino voters will have political consequences this November…In Texas, Politico reported, a Republican congressional redistricting plan designed to add five seats for the party is now in danger because of threats to Republican incumbents in heavily Hispanic districts along the southern border, Samuel Benson and Liz Crampton reported. “Backlash to President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown is putting vulnerable Republicans in a tough spot, forcing them to shift their tone to appease frustrated Hispanic voters — or risk losing key battleground seats,” they wrote…“With the border secure and Latinos responding to ICE raids and government overreach,” Mike Madrid, a Republican strategist, told Politico, “the districts that Republicans thought were their future a year ago are likely to be their undoing.” He added that it’s “hard to find another situation in the past 50 years where a political party has squandered a generational opportunity like this.”

Edsall adds, “The next two sets of elections nationwide, this year and in 2028, will determine the scope of the damage Trump has inflicted on his party’s coalition. Polling shows substantial self-inflicted damage, but the data on the harm to the Republican Party and its candidates is more ambiguous…Comparing data from the Feb. 24 to 26, 2025, NPR/PBS/Marist survey to its Jan. 27 to 30, 2026, poll reveals Trump’s declining support among minority voters…The surveys showed Trump’s ratings among Black voters falling from 36 percent favorable and 55 percent unfavorable in February 2025 to 32 favorable and 64 unfavorable last month. Among Latino voters, Trump’s ratings fell from 44 percent favorable and 46 unfavorable to 38 favorable and 54 unfavorable…Put another way, Trump’s net favorability fell by 13 percentage points among Black voters and by 14 points among Latinos…But Trump will not be on the ballot in 2026 or 2028, so the crucial question becomes: Will his declines translate to Democratic gains?…This is where the numbers become somewhat murky. Just a month into his second term, a Feb. 23 to 25 Economist/YouGov survey found Black voters had a 56 percent positive to 26 negative view of the Democratic Party, while Latino voters were almost evenly split, 42 positive and 45 negative……In the 10 months between the two Economist/YouGov surveys, Black voters became decisively more negative, shifting from 23 percent favorable and 59 unfavorable toward the Republican Party to an overwhelming 8 favorable and 66 unfavorable……Hispanics, however, changed very little, from 31 favorable and 54 unfavorable toward the Republicans to 24 favorable and 51 unfavorable…Some of these shifts may seem so small as to be irrelevant. But the margin of victory in the national popular vote in 2024 was under 2 percentage points.”