The South Texas border town of Laredo lies hundreds of miles from Austin, the state capital, and more than a thousand from Chicago, where many Democratic lawmakers from Texas flew on Sunday in an attempt to block the adoption of a gerrymandered new congressional map.
But as far as they are from the political action this week, towns like Laredo along the Southwestern border are crucial to Republicans’ plans to flip five of Texas’ U.S. House seats from blue to red.
Texas Republicans are hoping that the surge of Hispanic support for President Trump in 2024, which was especially sharp in South Texas, will last through the 2026 midterm elections. They also hope that voters, Hispanic or not, in districts like the currently Democratic one around Laredo will not be overly angry about the Republicans’ aggressive mid-decade redistricting push, a hardball tactic to retain power in Washington that is being pressed by Mr. Trump.
More than a dozen conversations with voters in South Texas over the weekend showed that neither hope is a sure thing.
“The Republican Party is going to lose a lot of votes around here,” said Ricardo Sandoval, 35, a trucking and warehousing businessman in Laredo who supported Mr. Trump in November.
Mr. Sandoval said he agreed with Mr. Trump’s campaign promises for tax cuts, tariffs on China and an immigration crackdown along the border. But now, he said, he feels he was misled. The roller coaster of on-again-off-again tariffs has depressed cross-border trade and upended his business, pushed prices up and forced him to lay off more than a dozen employees. Mr. Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement actions have been disrespectful to the thousands of Hispanics who supported him, Mr. Sandoval said. And he said the Republicans’ redistricting effort in Texas was an unethical way to try to hold onto power.
“There’s a sense of betrayal,” he said.
Recent polling has suggested that misgivings like Mr. Sandoval’s might be spreading among Hispanic voters, especially those who say they are feeling the impact of rising prices for groceries and imported goods, as well as a slowdown in the labor market.
Nationally, about a third of Latinos who voted for Mr. Trump in November say they are not set on voting for a Republican in 2026, according to a survey conducted in July by Equis Research. And some 64 percent of Latinos who were surveyed rated the economy as either somewhat or very poor.
“People in South Texas are not happy with how this administration is handling things,” said Representative Vicente Gonzalez, a Democrat who narrowly won re-election last year in a border district that Republicans hope to redraw in time for next year’s elections.
In 2024, Mr. Trump made remarkable inroads in South Texas. He won 12 of the 14 counties along the border with Mexico, compared with just five of them in 2016.
Now, Republicans want to press that advantage by shifting Trump voters like Christina Medina, 53, into the 28th District, now represented by Henry Cuellar, a Democrat. Ms. Medina, a speech therapist, lives in Carrizo Springs, about 80 miles north of Laredo, which is currently part of the safely Republican 23rd District.
The Democratic Party’s focus on social issues like transgender rights “is contrary to what many people believe,” Ms. Medina said. South Texans are generally tolerant of other people, she added, but do not want to have certain beliefs “pushed on them.”
Democrats insist that Mr. Trump’s 2024 performance among Latinos in South Texas was a high-water mark, whether or not the redistricting succeeds. Sylvia Bruni, who chairs the Democratic Party in Webb County, which includes Laredo, said she expected discontent to grow as voters experience the impact of Republican-led cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps. About 22 percent of Laredo residents live in poverty, according to the Census Bureau.
“I can assure you that Webb County is going to be angry,” Ms. Bruni said.
Redistricting is always tricky. Under the proposed map of U.S. House seats, Mr. Gonzalez’s district, the 34th, anchored in Brownsville, would be extended northward into Nueces County to pull in rural voters between Brownsville and Corpus Christi, 160 miles to the north, and would give up part of Hidalgo County along the border, which has traditionally been Democratic.
But that change might not work out the way Republicans intend, Mr. Gonzalez said. Corpus Christi is his hometown, he said, and strong connections there from his youth may work in his favor.
“I don’t think they took that into account,” Mr. Gonzalez said. “I think it’s a major miscalculation.”
Mr. Cuellar similarly said that while he opposed Republicans’ redistricting efforts, the new map could actually help him by shifting areas that had been under Mr. Cuellar’s jurisdiction before the 2021 redistricting back into his district.
“We certainly don’t want the redistricting to happen,” Mr. Cuellar said. But, he added, “we will win if this is the race we are handed.”
Democrats have charged that the proposed district maps would disenfranchise voters of color. But Republicans have defended the maps, saying that four of the five seats they hope to flip have been drawn with Hispanic majorities. Implicit in that defense is the assumption by the Republicans that those Hispanic majorities will stand by the G.O.P. next year.
Carla Guzman, 27, wasn’t so sure. In 2024, the Laredo voter was so unsure of who to vote for in the presidential election that she chose not to vote at all. Now, she said, she regretted that decision.
Her husband, who was brought to the country illegally as a child and has been protected by the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, could now be at risk of deportation. Mr. Trump, who tried to end the program during his first term, recently advised DACA recipients to leave the country voluntarily.
Pregnant with her second child, Ms. Guzman said she felt the sting of retail price increases. She has cut out online shopping. And she said that while she once hoped to use money she won in a raffle for a dream vacation, she is having to use it instead to buy essentials and pay bills.
Even some of Mr. Trump’s staunchest supporters in South Texas said they were queasy over his immigration enforcement tactics.
Jaime Diaz, 55, works in Laredo’s construction industry and said he continues to support Mr. Trump, but has been disappointed by the surge in activity by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
“That’s the only thing I disagree with,” said Mr. Diaz, adding that the immigration enforcement has hurt Laredo’s economy.
Another note of caution for Republicans redrawing the Texas maps is the distinction that South Texans draw between Mr. Trump and Republicans not named Trump. The president’s gains last year did not extend all the way down the ballot; Democrats won many local races even in places where Mr. Trump won easily.
In Starr County, for example, Mr. Trump outpolled Kamala Harris by 16 percentage points, the first time in a century that the county backed a Republican for president. But at the same time, Mr. Cuellar, the Democrat who represents the area in the House, won 60 percent of the county’s votes.
Under the proposed map, Mr. Cuellar’s district would include more rural border towns and less of Democratic-leaning San Antonio. Former Representative Mayra Flores, a Republican, said she would run against Mr. Cuellar, who won re-election last year despite an indictment for money laundering and bribery.
Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina, a Laredo rancher who switched parties to join the Republicans last year, is also considering a run for the seat.
Mr. Cuellar, who is serving his 11th term in Congress, is seen as a moderate, and has supporters on both sides of the partisan divide. Mr. Sandoval, the Laredo Republican who works in the import-export business, said he would continue to support the congressman because he believed it was important to have a Hispanic lawmaker with so much seniority in the House, where he serves on the Appropriations Committee.
“Even if Tano wins, or Mayra wins, we’ll lose representation and lose money,” Mr. Sandoval said.