Consultant Says Republican Redistricting Push Is Backfiring as Latino Voters Turn Away From Both Parties

Republican efforts to redraw congressional maps for partisan advantage may be heading toward disappointment, according to political consultant Mike Madrid. In an interview with NPR's Leila Fadel, he called the strategy a "colossal mistake" in light of the latest polling.

Madrid has worked as a consultant for both Republicans and Democrats and has studied Latino voters for 35 years. He is the author of "The Latino Century" and teaches at the University of Southern California and the University of California, Irvine.

He said virtually every demographic group Republicans counted on as the foundation of a new coalition has been drifting away from the party for at least 18 months, and possibly longer. In his view, there is no single group where the party has consolidated or increased its support. That leaves many of the new district lines far less useful than their designers intended.

Madrid pointed to the 17 races that were redrawn to favor Republicans. In many of them, he said, the party is likely to lose or to find itself in an extremely competitive contest, which is not the outcome the maps were built to produce. He predicted that in a few short days the midterm results would show that what he called a "dummymander" had backfired spectacularly.

At the center of his argument are Latino voters. Madrid said Republican map-makers assumed these voters, whom the party refers to as new minority voters, would behave in a particular way. Instead, he said, acute economic problems are leading Latinos to reject both parties. Because Republicans hold power, he argued, they stand to suffer most from voters he described as the last major swing constituency in the country.

Madrid also challenged the long-held idea that demographics is destiny, a notion he said gained popularity during the Obama years and rested on the belief that nonwhite voters would always favor Democrats. Over roughly a decade, he said, Latino voters moved away from the Democratic Party, a trend that culminated in the 2024 election, when Latinos split about 50/50.

He argued, however, that the data pointed to a dealignment rather than a realignment. In his reading, Latinos were not embracing the Republican Party so much as leaving the Democratic Party, and are now leaving the Republican Party as well. He attributed this to both parties failing to deliver meaningful results on economic policy that improves household finances. As long as that continues, he said, dealignment will define American politics.

Madrid contrasted Latinos with other groups. Black voters and white voters without college degrees, he said, tend to be extraordinarily loyal and hyperpartisan, a pattern that has shaped American politics for 30 to 50 years. Latino voters, by contrast, are rejecting that racial polarization and are the most likely to be independents moving away from both parties, even when they are registered with one.

According to exit polls, Madrid said, vote shifts of more than 20% are appearing in some cases ahead of the 2026 midterms. That is the same size as the historic shift seen two years ago in the opposite direction. He described such swings as the purpose of elections in the first place, and said Latino voters are rejecting the idea of partisanship and polarization and what it means to be a minority voter in America.