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A top Florida Republican lawmaker warned that Hispanic voters felt “betrayed” by Donald Trump, issuing a stark rebuke of the president’s immigration crackdown ahead of the midterm elections.
María Elvira Salazar broke with Trump in a 30-second ad filmed in front of the White House as a growing cast of Republicans distance themselves from the president and his policies to avoid defeat in the November vote.
“Mr President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far,” Salazar, a member of the House of Representatives from the Miami area and daughter of Cuban immigrants, said in the ad released on Thursday.
“Be careful what your advisers are telling you about immigration policy. The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today,” she added.
Trump made strong gains with Hispanic voters in the last presidential election on the back of hopes that he would deliver a better economy with lower inflation.
But recent polling has shown Latino voters flocking back to the Democrats amid disappointment with his handling of the economy and high prices. This is endangering the campaigns of Republicans in predominantly Hispanic districts, including Salazar’s, which she won by more than 20 percentage points two years ago.
Trump has campaigned heavily on tougher border policies and deporting illegal immigrants. However, his crackdown has triggered a backlash as the administration has deported immigrants without a criminal background and used aggressive tactics against protesters, including federal agents killing two people in Minnesota in January.
Salazar’s rebuke comes as other Republicans look for ways to separate themselves from an administration that they have been reluctant to criticise for months out of fear of triggering retaliation from Trump. Several Republicans in battleground districts chose not to attend Trump’s midterms convention in Dallas, Texas, last week. Ashley Hinson, the Republican candidate for Senate in Iowa, declined to join JD Vance, the vice-president, on the campaign trail in the state on Friday.
In recent weeks, polling has appeared increasingly gloomy for Republicans. Trump’s own approval ratings have sunk to new lows and voters are looking to punish lawmakers who have failed to put any guardrails on his actions in the White House, from tariffs to the Iran war and artificial intelligence.
A bipartisan poll of battleground House districts released by the Cook Political Report on Thursday found that Democrats were “in a strong position to flip control of the chamber this fall”. Democrats had a two-point edge in competitive areas that Trump had won by five points in 2024, amounting to a significant seven-point swing.
“Voters blame Trump for making many of the country’s problems worse, and they’re more worried about Republicans enabling him than Democrats overcorrecting in opposition,” Patrick Toomey of New River Strategies, one of the pollsters who conducted the survey for the Cook Political Report, said.
