Politics

Trump nearly won Latino voters last year. Democrats just won many of them back.

Published

3 months ago

November 11, 2025

Latino voters, who swung toward President Donald Trump in 2024, boomeranged back to Democrats last week, signaling the fraying of his coalition less than one year into his second term.

Few places across the country epitomize that swing like New Jersey’s Passaic County, a densely populated, geographically diverse region where Latinos comprise a plurality. Voters there supported Trump by a narrow margin in 2024, only to back Democratic Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill by double-digits last week. Union City, which is the most Latino city in the state, swung 47 points toward Democrats. And Sherrill seized the Trump-supporting 9th Congressional District, home to a large Latino population, by around 19 points.

In Virginia, the other state with a gubernatorial contest last week, the two most heavily Latino cities swung toward Democratic Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger by more than 15 points each.

And in California, support for a Democratic-backed ballot measure exceeded Kamala Harris’ share by roughly 12 points in Imperial County, where Latino residents make up 77 percent of the population. That marks the biggest swing of any county in the state.

Just one year after Trump soared to victory with 48 percent of the Latino vote nationally, these results demonstrate that Republicans have yet to cement them into their coalition. Democrats, feeling emboldened after an epic shellacking last year, have been predicting Latinos would turn on the GOP out of dissatisfaction with Trump’s handling of the economy.

Not unlike Trump in 2024, Democrats were able to capitalize on those cost-of-living concerns to lure voters this year, proving correct a series of polls that portended this trend. It is giving the beleaguered party new optimism about their chances of taking back the House in next year’s midterms, as many of the districts up for grabs have substantial Latino populations.

“There was a lot of conversation heading out of the last election about a monolithic realignment, and I think it missed the fact that Trump is a unique beast who was able to persuade Latinos that he has their interests at heart,” said Tory Gavito, president of progressive donor network Way to Win. “In the last 11 months, he’s done everything but think about Latinos’ interests.”

Democrat Mikie Sherrill rallies in Union City on Nov. 3, 2025.

Democrats’ success with Latinos during this off-cycle election may not necessarily translate to races across the country in 2026, when the minority party will fight to retake control of Congress. And Latino voters in Florida and South Texas are likely to vote differently from those in New Jersey or California.

Further muddling the midterm picture is the Trump question. The president successfully turned out low-propensity Latino voters, some of whom may be more likely to participate in a midterm race than an odd-year election, especially if Trump decides to play a role in next year’s showdown.

So Republicans, who have made a big bet on majority-Latino districts in order to keep their majority next year, have some cause for hope amid an otherwise brutal Election Day for them. While GOP candidates underperformed Trump with Latinos last week, they still put up better numbers than the Republicans of a decade ago (in New Jersey in 2017 for example, Republicans won just 17 percent of the Latino vote, compared to roughly a third this time). And Tuesday’s elections also gave the GOP a new foil in New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, whom they think can further tarnish Democrats’ standing with Latino voters across the country who oppose socialism. (Mamdani won 58 percent of the vote in election districts where Latinos made up the largest share of the population, according to data compiled by The City.)

The day after the election, the National Republican Congressional Committee launched Spanish-language ads in 11 swingy congressional districts decrying the “socialist” soon-to-be New York City mayor as “the future that Democrats want” and warning voters their city could be next.

“Democrats have ignored Hispanic communities over the past nine years while millions of working families rejected their radical, socialist agenda,” Christian Martinez, the NRCC’s national Hispanic press secretary, said in a statement. “Republicans will continue to earn the support of Hispanic voters because we are working to deliver opportunity, security, and a better life.”

Democrats largely credited their messaging on affordability and blaming Trump for not following through on his economic campaign promises for their rebound with Latino voters.

“Latinos are rejecting Republicans’ broken promises of lower costs and a strong economy,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesperson Bridget Gonzalez said in a statement last week. “Groceries, utilities, and health care are unaffordable and that’s why Latinos will help Democrats take back control of the House next November.”

In California, the Prop 50 campaign to bolster Gov. Gavin Newsom’s redistricting push leaned heavily on immigration in its messaging, using imagery of ICE and Border Patrol raids to argue Trump’s power must be checked. The campaign’s Spanish-language ads focused predominantly on the immigration crackdown, with cursory mention of Trump’s tariffs.

“The Latino revolt was economic and personal — Trump hit their wallets with tariffs and our communities with raids,” said Juan Rodriguez, a senior strategist for Newsom. “From California to races across the country, the message for 2026 couldn’t be clearer.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a rally with Harris County Democrats at the IBEW local 716 union hall in Houston, on Saturday, Nov. 8, 2025.

A lot could change with the state of the economy that could either bolster or weaken their message. And some are cautioning Democrats not to get too comfortable with last week’s results — and not to rely strictly on affordability messaging.

“This doesn’t mean that Democrats have it in the bag,” said Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of America’s Voice, an immigration reform group, who added that she hopes to see Democrats message more on immigration in addition to the economy during the midterms. “We’ve seen it before — there’s a lot of distrust of Democrats on immigration issues because of promises that have been made.”

“They have a lot to vote against,” she continued. “The challenge for Democrats is giving them something to vote for.”

In New Jersey, Sherrill’s victory looms large over the state’s 9th congressional district, a plurality-Latino seat that encompasses parts of Bergen and Passaic counties. Sherrill won both by double digits, a major swing after Trump flipped Passaic and lost Bergen by just 3 points in 2024. Republicans are targeting the district’s first-term representative, Democrat Nellie Pou, largely because Trump won the seat in 2024.

But ticket-splitting in the district’s further down-ballot races may demonstrate that Democrats’ work isn’t done there. In Hawthorne, a borough where Latinos make up around one-quarter of the population, preliminary results show Sherrill won but incumbent Republicans prevailed in mayoral and council races.

Carlos Cruz, a Republican strategist who worked on a super PAC backing Sherrill’s opponent, Jack Ciattarelli, said that last year’s election was a “referendum” on leadership in Washington and the economy, and people cast a ballot this year for the same reasons.

“There were people who voted for the president who wanted to see more,” Cruz said. “For Democrats to overreact and say ‘Nellie is safe now’ is fundamentally misreading this year’s elections.”

Morghan Cyr, Pou’s campaign manager, said that the results “solidified one thing for Democrats above all: Latino communities are key to success across the board.”

“Early, intentional investment in and engagement with these communities is essential to Democrats taking back the House in 2026,” Cyr said in a statement last week. “The progress that was made this week is good, but we have to keep building on it.”

Politics

‘The podfather is back’: Podcaster-turned-FBI deputy director Dan Bongino makes his return to the MAGA masses

Published

43 minutes ago

February 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

After a nine-month stint helping run the FBI, former deputy director Dan Bongino is a podcaster once again.

On Bongino’s first show back on Monday, President Donald Trump briefly dialed in, offering Bongino — who resigned from the agency in December — well wishes.

But otherwise, the episode was more of a two-hour monologue that saw Bongino attempting to skewer old enemies — namely the mainstream media — and reconnect with the masses that launched his name, years ago, into the MAGA stratosphere.

“The podfather is back,” he declared, “and I’m here to take back this movement.”

Before joining the FBI last year, Bongino was a prolific right-wing podcaster who peddled in deep-state conspiracy theories. As the agency’s No. 2, working alongside the real-world powers he used to rail against, Bongino was often caught between his past digital footprint and his new job helping lead one of the nation’s premier law enforcement agencies. 

For years, he entertained conspiracies about sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s death, dismissing the authorities’ claims that the late financier killed himself. Bongino built a fanbase by stoking these very fires — and angered many when, after joining the FBI, he swiftly backtracked his rhetoric. Online, some of Bongino’s former supporters have slammed him as a sellout.

The show was a big moment for Bongino, whose tenure at the FBI was at times chaotic. The show’s launch included a Times Square billboard, and opened with around 140,000 viewers — according to conservative video platform Rumble’s view count — and peaked at around 220,000.

After a victory lap around the nation’s top law enforcement agency, Bongino is not returning to the friendliest audience. And he had some choice words for any critics.

“I want to address the grifters out there who mistakenly thought I wasn’t coming back,” he said during the livestream. “This movement’s been hijacked by a small group of dipshits and bums and losers, who are nothing but doomers under the frame of accountability.”

This was the throughline for much of the two-hour segment, which saw Bongino ripping into a number of his critics. “Get your lips and just pucker them up and plant a big wet one on my ass,” he told “the libs and their media pals.”

The “dipshits” in media, he said, remain “totally divorced from reality.”

And to alleged leakers at the FBI: “You guys destroyed the place, and you tried to destroy us too,” he said. “But I’m back now, and you can go fuck yourself.”

Bongino, exhaling at the end of his minutes-long diatribe, smiles into the camera: “We’re so back. Aren’t we?”

But unlike the first version of his podcast, Bongino largely shied away from conspiracy theories — except for when, 15 minutes into the show, his livestream abruptly cut off thanks to a technical glitch. 

“Rumble is under attack, this show is under attack, this is what these scumbags do,” he said. “Can’t have a voice like me speaking out.”

“They just don’t want me to talk,” he repeated for the rest of the show.

He also offered “behind the scenes” insights into his time at the FBI, defending himself against critics who misunderstood, he said, the decisions they made — including the agency’s handling of the Epstein files. 

“When you get selected for one of these principal or deputy positions, everything you do is a level 10 decision,” Bongino said. “Find out which one is the shittier decision and avoid it. That’s the best you can do.

“Here’s the problem with the Epstein mess,” he continued. “The FBI doesn’t have the evidence many thought it did. … There were not tapes with powerful men raping kids. There was not a list. Epstein’s rolodex was already public. The files are largely unreleasable for many reasons.”

The files didn’t contain the smoking gun people were expecting, Bongino said, but “this administration got you the information.”

Near the end of the show, Trump — who hand-picked Bongino for his post last year — dialed in for a brief interview, where the two discussed the administration’s crime crackdown, Minnesota’s welfare fraud scandal and National Guard deployments.

“I’ll tell you what, if I were a Democratic governor and I were in charge of Chicago, as an example, I would be begging Donald Trump to come,” Trump told Bongino.

Trump took another chance to rail at the results of the 2020 election (“I won in a landslide,” he said), urging Republicans to “nationalize the voting” and suggesting taking over voting “in at least 15 places,” which he didn’t name. And he patted himself on the back for his military actions in Iran and Venezuela, saying the U.S. is “respected again like never before.”

“Listen, you did great in the FBI,” Trump told Bongino. “I’m very torn. I think, maybe, I’d rather have you where you are. “Very few people can do what you do, and your voice is a very important one.”

Bongino, who has generally been a reliable supporter of Trump, intends to host his show every weekday. And for those expecting a Bongino chastened by his time in government — or those looking to take his space in the MAGA media sphere — he had a direct closing message.

“All my bullshit detractors or whatever,” Bongino said at the end of the episode, “don’t know shit about anything. Throwing popcorn from the front row. We’re the number one livestream in the world. … I’m such a target that they came after the whole damn website. That’s how bad they want to keep me off the air.”

“But I have my first — guys, you ready for this screenshot? — double barrel to those who tried to stop us,” he continued, silently flipping two middle fingers to the camera.

Politics

Tina Smith endorses Peggy Flanagan over Angie Craig in Minnesota Senate race

Published

5 hours ago

February 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Tina Smith is endorsing Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan as her successor over Rep. Angie Craig, taking sides in a hotly contested primary to fill Smith’s Senate seat that’s been roiled in recent weeks by the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement efforts.

“Today, 3,000 federal agents are terrorizing our communities,” Smith said in a video announcing her pick that was shared first with Blue Light News. “I know that right now there is no one that I trust more to stand with Minnesota than Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan.”

Flanagan, in the video, called it an “honor” to have the retiring senator’s endorsement and pledged to “continue in her footsteps.”

“We’re going to push back against the status quo and send a progressive fighter to continue representing us in Washington, D.C.,” Flanagan said.

Smith’s endorsement comes a day before the state’s Democratic and Republican precinct caucuses, the first step in each party’s formal endorsement process.

In selecting Flanagan, Smith is elevating a fellow lieutenant governor and progressive over Craig, a moderate, for the seat she has held since 2018. Smith is the eighth sitting senator to endorse Flanagan, who also has the backing of Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and other members of the so-called Fight Club of progressive senators of which they are all a part. Former Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), who held the seat before Smith, also endorsed Flanagan.

Craig has some high-profile endorsements of her own, with five senators including Sens. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) in her corner, as well as former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

And it comes against the backdrop of deadly incidents involving federal agents enforcing President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in the state that have opened new fissures in the Senate primary. While both candidates have called for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s impeachment, Flanagan has attacked Craig for taking “pro-Trump” immigration votes last year, while Craig has countered that her rival is being “disingenuous” about the content and context of the measures.

Nonpartisan public polling in the race has been scant. Polling conducted in the past month for Flanagan’s team, as well as a separate survey commissioned by a pro-Flanagan group, shows the lieutenant governor with a double-digit lead over Craig. A poll commissioned by Craig’s campaign showed the race within the margin of error.

Craig has built a fundraising advantage in the race, raising $2 million in the fourth quarter of 2025 and starting the election year with $3.7 million in cash on hand. Flanagan, meanwhile, raised roughly $1 million in that timeframe and ended the year with $810,646 in the bank.