Welcome back to The Political Spectrum! “One Day More” until the midterm polls close.
Longtime followers know that I have spent a large part of my career following the Latino vote.
During the Obama years, Democrats believed Hispanic voters would be permanently in their column. Donald Trump’s racism galvanized this hope. But even as Trump separated families at the U.S.-Mexico border in his first term and promised mass deportations in his 2024 campaign, he improved with Hispanic voters. In 2024, he won a majority of Latino men, according to exit polls. It was not just “machismo” either; Catalist found an even bigger shift among Latinas between 2012 and 2024.
Latinos voted in droves for Gov. Abigail Spanberger in Virginia and Gov. Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey last year. Poll after poll shows Latino voters overwhelmingly prefer Democrats this cycle. And as per usual, the economy is top-of-mind.
I’ve sort of become popular on social media for saying “¡Dios Mio!” when I noticed big Latino voters trends. It means “Oh my God!” in Spanish. But tomorrow will be the biggest one of them all. Here are six counties to watch. Since these are bellwethers, we will mostly be looking at counties that will report early.
Miami-Dade County, Florida
It’s easy to assume that Miami-Dade is automatically red given that the Cuban-American diaspora that fled Fidel Castro’s regime. But before Trump won Miami-Dade in 2024, Democrats won it in every presidential election going back to 1992. Barack Obama improved on his 2008 margins in Miami-Dade in 2012 and Hillary Clinton built on it when she won about two-thirds of the vote.
Miami-Dade shifted right in 2020 when Trump won about 46 percent of the vote. But Ron DeSantis whittled away at Democrats’ margin there when he ran against left-wing candidate Andrew Gillum for governor before he outright won it in 2022.
But now, the county is going through a shift. In 2025, Miami elected Eileen Higgins, the first Democratic mayor in almost three decades. And recently, Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, a former newscaster for Telemundo, ran an ad saying that “The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today.” Plenty of Cuban-Americans feel slighted by Trump ending Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Cuban refugees. Salazar is running against Eliot Rodriguez, a former CBS newscaster.
Miami-Dade usually reports its election results fairly early. Salazar running behind her 2024 performance or even losing will say plenty about where Latino voters are. If Miami-Dade sees some crossover voting for David Jolly, the Democratic nominee for governor, as opposed to Republican Rep. Byron Donalds, Democrats should be in for a good night. By contrast, watch how the state votes for State Rep. Angie Nixon, a democratic socialist endorsed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), against incumbent Sen. Ashley Moody, who replaced Marco Rubio after Trump nominated him to be secretary of State.
Lehigh County, Pennsylvania
Lehigh County, about an hour outside of Philadelphia, is home, to Allentown, which has about a 55 percent Puerto Rican population.
While it has voted Democratic since 1992, Republicans have cut into their margins. The Lehigh Valley is located in Pennsylvania’s 7th district. In 2024, it deposed incumbent Democratic Rep. Susan Wild for Republican Ryan Mackenzie. Firefighter Bob Brooks, who also has the endorsement of both the Blue Dogs and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), is now running against Mackenzie. In addition, watch how Gov. Josh Shapiro, who won the area in his 2022 race for governor, performs.
Whitfield County, Georgia
Whitfield County, Georgia came across my radar during the special election for Georgia’s 14th district after Marjorie Taylor Greene resigned from Congress. About 39.1 percent of the population is Hispanic. It also includes Dalton, Georgia, which is majority-Hispanic.
Jacob Rubashkin, the deputy editor of Inside Elections, flagged at the time of Greene’s resignation that two of the most Hispanic precincts in Dalton had swung from voting for Biden by 38 points to Kamala Harris by 22 points in 2024.
But by special election time in April, Democrat Shawn Harris won these precincts by 73 percent of the vote.
Whitfield County is still overwhelmingly Republican, electing Trump with almost three-quarters of the vote in 2024. But elections are decided on the margins. If Sen. Jon Ossoff or Democratic nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms does well in places like Dalton, this will be a good night for Democrats.
Gwinnett County, Georgia
Gwinnett County, Georgia
UPDATE: I accidentally wrote Gwinnett County, Georgia when I meant Whitfield County. But Gwinnett County, Georgia is also important to watch. So let’s pretend I meant to do that.
In 2008, Obama lost Gwinnett County by 10 points. He lost it by about nine in 2012. But in 2016, Gwinnett flipped to vote for Clinton. A big reason for this? An influx of Latino voters.
Located about 30 miles away from Atlanta, it’s part of the suburban sprawl that has turned the state from bright red to purple. A big reason for this? The influx of Latino voters. In 2010, a report from the county found that 54 percent of its residents were racial minorities and its total population rose by 37 percent between 2000 and 2010. During that time, its Hispanic population nearly doubled. Now, Hispanics make up more than a quarter of the population.
In 2020 and in the 2021 runoffs, Ossoff and Sen. Raphael Warnock performed impressively in Gwinnett. And despite many counties with large Hispanic populations shifting hard to the right, Gwinnett barely ticked down. Expect Ossoff to perform well here, but Bottoms must perform well here to stave off Republican Rick Jackson.
Starr County, Texas
All eyes are on Texas. So this means we are doing two counties there. The Hispanic shift in the 2024 election shocked Democrats to their core and nowhere was it more apparent than in the Rio Grande Valley. Located right on the border with Mexico, this-majority-Hispanic region voted for Democrats for more than a century.
But it shifted right during Trump’s presidency. In 2016, Clinton won about 79 percent of the vote in Starr. But Trump cut into that number by 27 points in 2020, bolstered by his economic message. In 2024, he flipped Starr and won it with more than 57 percent of the vote.
For Democratic Senate candidate and seminarian James Talarico to even have a prayer’s chance, he not only needs to flip Starr; he must run up the scoreboard. As Bobby Pulido, the Democratic nominee for Congress in the nearby 15th District, told me in May, many Hispanic business owners can no longer field a workforce because of the Trump administration’s deportations.
One reason for Democrats to feel optimism? Starr County blew the doors off in early voter turnout. In 2022, 11,117 people in Starr cast their ballots altogether. In 2026, 11,866 voted early. As readers of this newsletter know, it is impossible to extrapolate from election results, especially in Texas which does not register by party. But unless Democratic votes are cannibalizing Election Day votes, Talarico should feel good.
Hidalgo County, Texas
This one is the grand daddy of Rio Grande Valley counties. While Starr County has a population of about 66,319 people, Hidalgo has a population of about 921,549. In 2012, Barack Obama won about 70 percent of the vote. In 2024, Trump narrowly won a majority of the vote.
Not only is this a must-win for Talarico. Democratic nominee for governor Gina Hinojosa is a native of McAllen, which is in Hidalgo. Hinojosa must overperform here to have a chance at defeating Greg Abbott.
Again, reading too much into early voting is a fool’s errand, but there are signs Latino voters are mobilized. In 2022, 141,196 people in Hidalgo voted altogether. In this year’s early voting period, 165,899 cast their ballot. There are no promises in American politics. But this is about as good a result as any Democrat could want in the Valley.
That about does it. Of course, this is not a comprehensive list of all bellwether Hispanic counties. Just some of the most interesting ones that might paint a picture of what the 2026 midterms will look like.
As always, here is your regular Bam Bam post, because why discuss the Latino vote without a churro?
That about does it for The Political Spectrum. If you liked this post, please consider subscribing below if you have not already. We’ll see you on the flipside where we will be reporting from Raleigh.