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PHOENIX — <\/span>As Sandra Ramirez watched footage of immigration officers cracking down on migrants<\/a> over the past year, she knew her 2024 vote for Donald Trump was a mistake.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are a lot of people who are being harassed for the color of their skin, and that\u2019s not right,\u201d said Ramirez, who broke from her Democrat-voting family to cast a ballot for Trump.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll never go Republican again,” she said.<\/p>\n Trump made inroads with Latino voters<\/a> like Ramirez during the 2024 elections, earning support that helped propel him to a second term in the White House. <\/p>\n As Republicans gear up for midterms this fall and look ahead to presidential elections in 2028, all eyes are on whether they can hold on to that key support or whether the administration’s sweeping immigration crackdown and an economy beset by high prices may drive Latino voters away. <\/p>\n In a sign of looming danger, recent polling from the Pew Research Center<\/a> shows support for Trump falling fast among that electorate.<\/p>\n Latino voters have historically been largely aligned with the Democratic Party but during the 2024 election, they shifted significantly toward Trump<\/a>. A majority still supported Democrat Kamala Harris for president, but Trump made big gains: 43% of Latino voters<\/a> nationally voted for him, compared with 35% in the 2020 presidential election, a change attributed in part to their concerns about the economy<\/a>. <\/p>\n Trump returned to office pledging to crack down on immigration, a promise that prompted arrest sweeps, often against Latino migrants, in homes, workplaces and schools, among others. According to an AP-NORC poll, more than half of Latino adults<\/a> report knowing someone impacted by the Trump administration\u2019s aggressive immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n More than a year into Trump\u2019s second term, polling suggests a significant drop in support for the president among Latinos who voted for him in 2024, although a majority still supports him. <\/p>\n According to a Pew Research Center poll conducted in April, support for the president fell among non-Latino voters from 95% to 79% between February of last year and April of 2026. But among Latino voters who cast their ballot for Trump, the drop-off was more dramatic: 66% approved of his job performance in April compared with 93% at the beginning of his second term.<\/p>\n That national drop could prove crucial in a tight election in swing counties like Maricopa, the largest battleground county in the nation, which encompasses Phoenix and its suburbs. A third of Maricopa County residents are Latino, and one in four of them is an immigrant, according to the Latino Data Hub at the University of California, Los Angeles.<\/p>\n Arizona, which also saw a slight increase in Latino support for Trump<\/a> in 2024, has been a flashpoint in the immigration debate for years. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio<\/a> conducted high-profile raids in Latino communities and, later, the state saw large influxes of migrants during the Biden administration. <\/p>\n On a warm afternoon in the predominantly Latino neighborhood of south Phoenix, a vendor at a street fair sold shirts imprinted with phrases like \u201cLowriders Sunday\u201d while car club members polished their Chevrolets. The parking lot of the nearby Catholic church was full of parishioners attending Spanish-language Sunday Mass.<\/p>\n Albert Rodriguez, a Phoenix tattoo artist, said he once supported Trump. But then he saw how the administration was carrying out enforcement operations in Chicago, Minneapolis and Los Angeles.<\/p>\n He said the president promised to go after immigrants who were criminals, but instead Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been \u201chitting the paleta man,\u201d referring to ordinary people trying to make a living from selling frozen treats.<\/p>\n \u201cBig time, I regret it,\u201d Rodriguez said of his 2024 vote for Trump.<\/p>\n Phoenix resident Ronnie Martinez, an Army veteran, backs Trump’s effort to stem crossings<\/a> at the southern border.<\/p>\n \u201cThe border is only a hop, skip and a jump to our south. And I don\u2019t want illegal alien criminals coming from Guatemala, Venezuela, Central America,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He didn\u2019t like some of the images he\u2019d seen of ICE arresting people in front of their children. But he was also sympathetic to ICE officers, who he said were doing the best they could in difficult situations, and he blamed Democratic officials who weren\u2019t cooperating with immigration enforcement. He also cited economic initiatives as a reason for his continued support for the president, including the removal of taxes on tips<\/a> and overtime.<\/p>\n Guadalupe Alaffa, another Phoenix resident, blamed President Joe Biden’s policies for prompting Trump’s immigration crackdown.<\/p>\n \u201cHe left that damn border wide open,\u201d said Alaffa.<\/p>\n The growing influence of Latino voters is one of several factors that have eroded the GOP\u2019s decades-long dominance in Arizona, putting the state at the center of congressional and presidential elections. Both of Arizona\u2019s senators are now Democrats, along with the top three state officials.<\/p>\n Winning back some of the Latinos who shifted to Trump will be crucial to the reelection prospects of Gov. Katie Hobbs<\/a>, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and Attorney General Kris Mayes, all Democrats first elected in 2022. <\/p>\n Democrats in Maricopa County have benefited from more than a decade of political organizing among Latinos mobilizing against hard-line immigration enforcement. The Republican-controlled Legislature in 2010 passed a state law known as SB1070<\/a>, which required police to check the immigration status of anyone they suspected of being in the country illegally. <\/p>\n Around the same time, Sheriff Arpaio was building a national profile on the right with immigration sweeps in largely Latino neighborhoods.<\/p>\n Some activists see the nationwide crackdown on immigrants as an extension of what Latinos in Arizona endured under Arpaio.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were the lab where they implemented a lot of this with Sheriff Joe and now it\u2019s all over the United States,\u201d said Salvador Reza, a longtime activist in Phoenix who advocates for the rights of day laborers.<\/p>\n For over two decades, Arpaio was repeatedly elected while his department faced accusations of racially profiling Latino drivers and conducting sweeps in Latino neighborhoods and day labor areas. Deputies often stopped residents for traffic violations and turned noncitizens over to ICE, according to rights groups.<\/p>\n In 2013, a federal judge ruled his office had illegally profiled and detained Latinos, and a 2011 Justice Department report found widespread discrimination. After losing reelection in 2016, Arpaio was convicted of criminal contempt for defying court orders. He was later pardoned by Trump<\/a>.<\/p>\n The GOP is at risk of losing some of the Latinos that Trump won over, said former Republican Gov. Jan Brewer<\/a>, who signed the controversial 2010 bill. She cited economic concerns as a possible reason for the drop in support.<\/p>\n \u201cWith the inflation and the cost of living and the gasoline and the wars, I don\u2019t know if they can afford to be a Trump Republican,” Brewer said. <\/p>\n Earl Wilcox, a longtime activist and restaurant owner in Phoenix, said between affordability issues and immigration enforcement, he believes Latino support for Trump is waning. Wilcox’s restaurant hosted Biden in 2024 when he launched an initiative meant to rally Latino support<\/a> for the Democratic ticket.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think the Republican Party will have the support it did the second time around,” Wilcox said, \u201cand I think it started with the raids.\u201d<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Associated Press writers Jonathan J. Cooper and Amelia Thomson DeVeaux contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n