ORLANDO, Fla. — After drifting toward President Donald Trump two years ago, Florida Latinos changed course this year and voted for Democrats, a striking shift that helped propel Central Florida Democrats to victory and made the party’s candidates competitive statewide.

Concerns about the rising cost of living and the Trump administration’s harsh crackdown on undocumented immigrants — one that has shaken even those who are United States citizens — prompted the ballot box change, according to voters, polls and political scientists.

In Osceola County, one of the state’s three Hispanic-majority counties, for example, 58% of ballots cast went to Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Angie Nixon, a 10 percentage point swing from 2024. That year, Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell received fewer votes in what had been a left-leaning county than her Republican opponent, U.S. Sen. Rick Scott.

Similar swings occurred in Miami-Dade, the state’s largest county with a population that is nearly 70% Hispanic, in Hendry County, a rural county east of Fort Myers where nearly 58% of the population is Hispanic, and in Latino-heavy counties in other parts of the country, such as Texas.

In Florida, Nixon and other Democrats still came up short, with GOP candidates holding onto statewide offices. But Democrats had lots of victories in down-ballot races.

U.S. Rep. Darren Soto, a Democrat whose district takes in part of Orange and Osceola counties, for example, was able to narrowly win reelection to Congress, even after he was the target of a redistricting initiative led by Gov. Ron DeSantis, who tried to help a Republican flip the seat. The DeSantis redistricting plan diluted the percentage of Hispanics in the district, but Soto, who has Puerto Rican ancestry, was still reelected.

Nixon, a Black progressive who campaigned in person across Florida, energized her supporters and was a particularly compelling candidate for Latinos and voters of color. Her popularity may have benefitted other Democrats up for election this year, experts say.

But anger at Trump, who has historically low approval ratings, likely drove many Latinos to vote for Democrats this year.

“This is absolutely an expression from the Latino and Hispanic voters that they are very much in disagreement with the policies of this administration,” said Maria Puerta Riera, an assistant professor in the political science department at Valencia College.

Puerta Riera, who worked at polling places both during early voting and on Election Day, said she was struck by the number of first-time voters, including older people, she saw casting ballots.

Nationally, Democrats took control of both the U.S. House and Senate and won the governorships in roughly three-quarters of states, as overall turnout was the second-highest for a mid-term election in modern history. In Florida, nearly 61% of the electorate voted.

Voter turnout in Latino-majority precincts in Orange and Osceola counties increased more than it did in white-majority precincts in those counties, according to Equis, an organization that conducts polling and research related to Latinos.

Samuel Vilchez Santiago, the chair of the Orange County Democratic Party, shared the Equis data with the Orlando Sentinel.

“I think it’s a complete repudiation of Trump,” said Vilchez Santiago, who was just elected to the Florida House. “I think many Latino voters believed him when he said he was going to lower costs, he was going to drain the swamp. They have buyer’s remorse.”

While some Republican candidates tried to distance themselves from Trump this year, the president made that difficult, as he held rallies across the country, including in Florida, and brought GOP candidates onstage. Governor-elect Byron Donalds and U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody, who defeated Nixon, were among the speakers at rallies held just days before the election in Daytona Beach and Fort Myers.

“President Trump was telling everybody, ‘Pretend I’m on the ballot,’ so I think a lot of people had that in mind going into the voting booth,” said Egan Carter, the chair of the Osceola Democratic Executive Committee.

Carter’s counterpart, Osceola County Republican Executive Committee Chairman Joel Davis, agreed Trump and other party leaders had seemed “tone deaf” in recent months and that alienated some voters.

“Telling people how great the stock market is when they just stopped and paid $100 to fill up their car with gas is the wrong message,” Davis said.

He also cited U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s aggressive crackdown on undocumented immigrants, which he described as an “overreach” that had hurt Republicans. At the end of the day, though, Davis said he thought most voters focused on the individual candidates rather than their party affiliation.

But Trump certainly was top-of-mind for Osceola voter Tracey Pabon, a 64-year-old who said he voted blue up and down the ballot.

Asked why he voted for Democrats, he responded by playfully asking, “Do you know who the president is?”

A U.S. Navy veteran, Pabon said he thinks Trump, who avoided the Vietnam War draft, had no business directing the military.

“I believe if you’re going to be president of the United States, you should have knowledge of war,” said Pabon, who grew up in Puerto Rico but has spent much of his adult life on the mainland.

Relaxing on a bench with his wife, Sundy, at Kissimmee’s Lakefront Park, Pabon had a number of other complaints about the president, who he thinks is racist, homophobic, disrespectful toward women, has devoted too much time and resources to a new White House ballroom and was too closely tied to accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

“I’m going to vote for whoever I think is going to do some good,” Pabon said.

But Lillian Carter, 72, who has Puerto Rican heritage and lives in Lake Nona, had a different view. Carter, who is not related to Egan Carter, said she was disappointed with the national election results, but she and other Republicans “have to accept that they want some change.”

“We all vote,” she said, speaking of her family and friends. “We try to do our best to keep the country the way it is supposed to be.”

Carter, who volunteers weekly at an art gallery in downtown Kissimmee, said one of her top election priorities was maintaining “control of immigrants,” though she said she was also concerned about the price of necessities like groceries and gas.

Immigration is a complex and nuanced issue for many Latino voters, including Puerto Ricans, who are American citizens and eligible to vote in Florida elections as soon as they move to the state.

Some, like Frank Rivera Martinez, want voters to support candidates and policies that extend grace to people who are not in this country legally.

“You have to take into consideration those who cannot vote,” said Rivera Martinez, who lives in Poinciana. “You have to take into consideration children who were separated from their family. You have to take into consideration those who were taken without due process.”

Rivera Martinez, 72, is a U.S. Navy veteran and Black Puerto Rican who became politically active after the 2012 death of Trayvon Martin, a Black teenager who was fatally shot by a white man while walking in a Sanford neighborhood. He’s now active with the Osceola Democrats and was a particularly enthusiastic champion of Nixon’s, attending several of her events, including her rally the week before the election in Kissimmee.

“Her message transcends barriers — barriers of race, color, religion, gender,” said Rivera Martinez, who spent part of his childhood in Puerto Rico.

Nixon was such an alluring candidate she may have plumped overall voter turnout, said Sharon Wright Austin, a political science professor at the University of Florida.

“She really did a lot to mobilize voters of color, and I think that is something that worked to the advantage of some of the other candidates that ran,” Wright Austin said.

Nixon spent much of the last few months traveling around the state, speaking at rallies and meeting voters face-to-face. Orange County Democrats also strived for that type of personal touch, knocking on tens of thousands of doors between the primary and general elections, Vilchez Santiago said.

Those efforts paid off: Nine Latino Democrats, a historic number, were elected to the state legislature this year.

But Puerta Riera said Democrats shouldn’t view the results of this election as a “full confidence vote.” Rather, she thinks it’s more of a “punishment vote against the Republican party.”

A Venezuelan American, Puerta Riera cautioned that Latinos are swing voters and depending on how the next two years go, they may go back to supporting Republicans. Democrats “should not take them for granted,” she said.

“This is just two years,” she said. “They’re on probation.”

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