A South Texas builder describes ICE agents pulling workers off a concrete pour. A former Trump voter tells what happened to her brother. Their anger leads to different choices.
BE A PART OF REACHING ALL. YOUR PAID SUBSCRIPTION DOES IT
We are almost ready to win big, if we can reach everyone. We make our newsletters and videos free because everyone deserves the truth, regardless of their ability to pay. We are countering the billionaire and corporate media to reach as many Americans as possible. We don’t need unlimited funds, but we rely entirely on small-dollar grassroots support to keep going. Please become a paid subscriber today so we can keep flooding the zone with the truth. We can’t do this without you.
Summary
In the Rio Grande Valley, a builder watched immigration agents pull workers off a concrete pour. A coffee shop owner watched the Trump administration deport her brother. Both reject what the administration did. Only one plans to vote Democratic. Their stories explain why Republicans could lose ground among Texas Latino voters in 2026 and why Democrats still have to earn their trust.
- Trump’s 2024 gains were real. Texas exit polls estimated that he won 55% of the state’s Latino vote. He carried Starr County, where no Republican presidential candidate had won in more than a century.
- The crackdown reached the jobsite. South Texas builder Ronnie Cavazos said tariffs had already hurt his business when ICE agents began taking workers off construction crews. The political independent plans to back Democrats.
-
Deportation cost Trump a supporter. San Benito business owner Jessica Cantu Vuittonet said Trump used the faith of voters like her. After the administration deported her brother, she described her tears as an expression of anger. She plans to sit out the election.
-
Even McAllen’s Republican mayor sees the damage. Javier Villalobos said constituents who welcomed tighter border security drew a distinction when deportations began taking productive neighbors out of the local economy.
-
The backlash shows up in statewide polling. An October 27 Univision/YouGov survey found that 56% of Hispanic Texas voters thought immigration enforcement had gone too far. Among Hispanic respondents, James Talarico led Ken Paxton 55% to 37% for Senate, and Gina Hinojosa led Greg Abbott 52% to 43% for governor.
Republicans gave working Texans reasons to walk away. The challenge for Democrats is to give someone as angry as Vuittonet a reason to walk into a voting booth.
Premium Content (Complimentary)
Trump Lost Her Trust in South Texas. Democrats Still Have to Earn Her Vote.
The concrete was already pouring when immigration agents started tapping workers on the shoulder. South Texas builder Ronnie Cavazos described that scene to ABC’s Martha Raddatz. Consider what it takes to reach that moment on a construction site. Somebody lined up a crew, ordered the concrete and got a truck there on time. Then the federal government showed up and took away the people doing the work. Which part of that was supposed to make life more affordable for a Texas family trying to build a home?
Republicans had good reason to celebrate South Texas in 2024. Donald Trump won Starr County by more than 15 points, ending a Democratic presidential winning streak that stretched back over a century. Statewide exit polls estimated that 55% of Latino voters backed him. But a ballot records a choice on a particular day. It gives the winner no claim on the person who cast it. Republicans are learning that distinction in the very communities they celebrated.
Cavazos runs a construction company north of McAllen. He said tariffs hit his business first. Then came the raids. Asked whether he could replace the workers, he said he couldn’t. There is an ugly bargain at the heart of this arrangement. The economy welcomes an immigrant’s labor right up to the moment a politician finds more value in making an example of the laborer. The builder loses a crew member. The worker risks losing a livelihood and a home. The politician gets to call the operation a success without accounting for what it cost anybody else. Cavazos, who claims neither party, says he will vote Democratic this cycle.
In San Benito, Jessica Cantu Vuittonet reached a different decision. The coffee shop owner cast her first ballot for Trump in 2024. She wore the hat. She believed his pledge to pursue dangerous criminals and understood her support as consistent with her faith. Then the administration deported her brother. “I feel used. I feel betrayed,” she told Raddatz. She wanted viewers to understand the tears they saw on camera. She was angry. And she intends to stay home.
That last detail ought to command the attention of every Democrat looking at a favorable Texas poll. The University of Houston’s Hobby School reported on October 23 that likely Latino voters favored Talarico over Paxton by 11 points. Four days later, Univision released a YouGov survey that put Talarico ahead by 18 points among Hispanic registered voters. The surveys measured different electorates, but both found an opening. Neither can tell a campaign how to earn the trust of the woman in that coffee shop.
Democrats can begin by taking seriously what both business owners said. A worker ought to be able to report stolen wages or an unsafe job without handing an employer the leverage of deportation. A family ought to know what process a loved one can expect when agents take him away. And a construction worker deserves those protections even when the last truck leaves and nobody needs another yard of concrete. That is a progressive economic argument grounded in the dignity of the person doing the work.
More than 7.7 million Texans voted early, according to preliminary state figures reported by The Texas Tribune. Those ballots establish the scale of participation. They cannot reveal what voters chose. On election eve, South Texas offers a more demanding lesson than the familiar claim that Latino voters are “coming home.” Cavazos has decided who deserves his vote this year. Vuittonet has explained why she sees little reason to cast one. Any party that wants to govern Texas owes her an answer worth showing up for.
Leave a Reply