In 2024, El Paso County Republicans had their best performance in decades, with their candidates for president and district attorney finishing within 15 percentage points of their Democratic opponents in a county where GOP losses of 25 points or more had been routine.
The El Paso results were an example of a national trend of Hispanic voters swinging sharply to the GOP, and led to talk of a realignment that could reshape U.S. politics. But two years later, polling shows that Hispanics have soured on President Donald Trump, undermining the hopes of Republican candidates across the country in the Nov. 3 midterm election.
A recently released poll of El Paso County adults suggests that Republicans may have surrendered the gains of two years ago. The local partisan split in the poll resembles election results in 2020 and 2022, when Democratic candidates got nearly twice as many votes as Republicans in top-of-the-ballot races.
The poll, conducted for the ACLU of Texas by Change Research, was an online survey of 410 El Paso County adult residents and 621 adult residents in Cameron, Hidalgo, Starr and Willacy counties in the Rio Grande Valley between Aug. 25 and Sept. 6.
The main focus of the poll was on how Texas border residents felt about enforcement actions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But the poll also asked questions about the top two races on the Texas ballot on Nov. 3: the U.S. Senate race between Republican Ken Paxton and Democrat James Talarico, and the governor’s contest between Republican incumbent Greg Abbott and Democrat Gina Hinojosa.
In both races, the Democratic candidates have 2-to-1 leads over their Republican opponents among El Paso County residents surveyed. Among respondents who said they were likely or certain to vote, the Democrats’ leads expanded by several percentage points. Those findings point to Republican candidates performing substantially worse in El Paso County than Trump did in 2024, with margins closer to the GOP’s losses in 2022.
Both Abbott and Paxton were on the ballot in the 2022 midterm elections. Abbott lost El Paso County by 29 percentage points to Democrat Beto O’Rourke. Paxton, running for reelection as attorney general, lost the county by 28 points to Democrat Rochelle Mercedes Garza.
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As always with polling, there are caveats.
The survey was conducted about two months before Election Day, before the final stretch of campaigning. Advertising, campaign visits and other developments could still influence voters.
Polls have margins of error. For the full sample of 1,031 adults in El Paso County and the four counties in the Rio Grande Valley, the margin of error is plus or minus 3.4 percentage points; for the 410 adults in El Paso County, it’s plus or minus 4.8 percentage points.
And the survey asked questions of adult residents, not necessarily people who are registered voters or who are likely to vote. So the survey isn’t necessarily reflective of the electorate who will show up at the polls during early voting or on Election Day.
But the findings of the ACLU of Texas poll align with trends that have clearly developed in polling across the country – President Trump’s job approval rating is dropping, which in turn is weakening other Republicans.
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Trump won 42% of the El Paso County votes in 2024 and trailed Democrat Kamala Harris by 15 points, the best result for a Republican presidential candidate in 20 years.
In the poll, just 31% of adults approved of his job performance. Although job approval and vote share measure different things, the poll figure more closely resembles his 32% share of El Paso County’s vote in 2020 than his 42% share in 2024.
Across the five border counties in the ACLU poll, 17% of those who said they voted for Trump in 2024 disapprove of his performance as president. Only 1% of those who voted for Harris approve of Trump’s job performance. (The poll results provided to El Paso Matters didn’t break down El Paso County separately on the breakdown of presidential approval and 2024 vote choice.)
In both the Senate and governor surveys, 7% of 2024 Trump voters surveyed in the five border counties say they plan to vote for Democrats Talarico and Hinojosa. By contrast, no Harris voters said they plan to vote for Paxton and only 1% said they planned to vote for Abbott.
The big concern in the poll for Republicans will be the Rio Grande Valley results. Trump won 52% of the 2024 vote in the four RGV counties in the survey, a first for a Republican presidential candidate. Only 36% of adults surveyed in those counties approved of his job performance as president.
The Rio Grande Valley was key to a Republican effort last year to redraw Texas congressional districts in a way designed to give the GOP five additional U.S. House seats in the 2026 election. The underlying premise of the redistricting was that Republicans would hold or build on their 2024 gains among Hispanic voters in the valley and across Texas.
Failure to secure the five additional Texas seats targeted by the redistricting plan would complicate Republicans’ hopes to retain control of the U.S. House.
One potentially positive note from the poll for Republicans is that Paxton and Abbott have an opportunity to improve on their 2022 performance in the Rio Grande Valley, when both trailed their Democratic opponents by double digits in that region, even as both GOP candidates dominated statewide.
But that likely will require Republicans to inspire potential Rio Grande Valley supporters who are unsure of whether they’ll vote this year. Talarico and Hinojosa have substantial leads in the four RGV counties among adults in the survey who say they’ll definitely vote this year.
The poll results also suggest that El Paso Republicans face steep challenges as they try to break a streak of futility that goes back decades.
Since 1900, El Paso Republican candidates have won three countywide elections – for the U.S. House and county school superintendent in 1962, and for a district court judgeship in 1984.
Republicans once regularly won district seats in Northeast and West El Paso for the Texas House of Representatives and Commissioners Court, but the last time that happened was 2010 for the state House and 2014 for Commissioners Court.
The GOP has long left most local races uncontested in El Paso County. The only countywide local races with Republican candidates in 2026 are for county judge and the 120th and 168th District Court benches.
Republicans also are fielding candidates in a handful of district races within the county, including for Congress, Commissioners Court, and the Texas House of Representatives.
The post Analysis: Poll suggests El Paso Republicans are shedding their 2024 gains appeared first on El Paso Matters.
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