A former GOP official was floored on Monday after the results of the special election in Texas showed the “damage” that President Donald Trump’s deportation regime has created for Republicans.
Mike Madrid, a former Republican strategist and a Latino, discussed how Trump’s immigration policies impacted the results of the special election for a Texas Senate seat. Democrat Taylor Rehmet won the Fort Worth-area seat in part because of a 50-point swing in Latino voters from Republicans to Democrats. Rehmet’s win stunned many political analysts and may have inspired Trump’s Monday afternoon call to nationalize the 2026 midterm election.
Madrid discussed Rehmet’s win on CNN’s “The Arena” with Kasie Hunt.
“People have been watching the Latino vote for decades now. I’ve never seen a 50-point swing away from either party,” Madrid said. “This is historic, and there’s no question that a huge part of this is a direct result of Trump’s policies on immigration. The voters are now beginning to separate the idea that this is about immigration. It’s really about overreaching government. Militarizing our streets is having an impact.”
Immigration has been a focal point of Trump’s second administration. He gave his deportation forces a daily quota of 3,000 arrests, a number that many legal experts have said is contributing to the violent and illegal acts by Trump’s immigration forces that have been reported.
Scenes from Minneapolis, where two U.S. citizens were gunned down by immigration agents, also helped spark fury toward the administration.
“There’s clearly a Latino corollary that’s pushing back and saying we as a community are not going to put up with this,” Madrid said. “We may have given you that chance. You’ve blown it. We’re going to come back to the other side of the aisle and resist what’s going on in our streets.”
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