By Andrea Shalal, Tim Reid and David Hood-Nuño
WASHINGTON, Feb 14 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s attack on Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show – including a gripe that it was mostly in Spanish – has alarmed some Republican Hispanic strategists, politicians and business leaders who warn it risks further eroding his support among Latino voters ahead of November’s congressional elections.
Hispanics were central to the coalition that powered Trump’s re-election in 2024, even after inflammatory rhetoric on the campaign trail, including a comedian calling the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” at one of Trump’s rallies. But their support has softened amid continued high prices, discontent over tariffs and his administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement tactics.
Some of Trump’s staunchest Latino allies called Republican attacks on the global music star — and on a performance widely seen as a rare prime-time celebration of Latino culture — a political misstep as the party fights to hold its razor-thin majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Several key House races are unfolding in Hispanic-heavy districts, including in California, Arizona and Colorado.
“It’s going to do us more damage than good,” said Vianca Rodriguez, a former Trump administration official who served as deputy Hispanic communications director for the Republican National Committee during the 2024 campaign. “That shouldn’t have been a battle to have been picked culturally.”
Rodriguez, who is Puerto Rican, said she remains an avid Trump supporter.
Trump slammed Bad Bunny’s February 8 halftime show as “an affront to the Greatness of America” and a “slap in the face” to the country. “Nobody understands a word this guy is saying,” Trump wrote on his social media account, calling the dancing “disgusting” and unsuitable for children.
Even long-time Trump critics like Mike Madrid were baffled by the president’s outburst.
“To see them doubling down on alienating the single most critical constituency they need for survival is beyond belief,” said Madrid, a Republican strategist who is an expert on Latino voting trends.
SOME HISPANICS ALREADY SOURING ON TRUMP
Hispanics are the largest ethnic minority in the U.S., accounting for about a fifth of the population. Trump received 48% of the Hispanic vote in 2024 – more than any Republican presidential candidate in history – up from the 36% share he garnered in 2020, according to the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.
But a November survey of more than 5,000 Latino voters by Pew showed Trump is down 12 percentage points among those who backed him in 2024. At the beginning of his second term in January 2025, 93% of Latinos who voted for him approved of the job he was doing. Ten months later, that had fallen to 81%.
Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, did not respond to questions about Trump’s weakening Latino support.
She said Trump received historic support from Latino voters in 2024 “based on his promises to enforce our immigration laws, deport criminal illegal aliens, and tackle Joe Biden’s inflation crisis. He is now fulfilling those promises.”
But Javier Palomarez, president of the U.S. Hispanic Business Council, said many small business owners feel Trump has failed to deliver lower prices and his Bad Bunny comments could add to their disillusionment.
“It’s just another illustration of a president who is woefully shooting himself in the foot at every chance he possibly gets,” Palomarez said.
He said that just before the 2024 election, 70% of his members in an internal survey believed Trump was the best candidate to fix the economy. Now that number has dropped to 40%.
Latino-owned businesses in Minneapolis are reporting a 70% drop in sales since the immigration crackdown there began, said Ramiro Cavazos, president of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
TRUMP PLANS TRAVEL TO KEY DISTRICTS
Several Hispanic conservatives told Reuters they weren’t offended by Trump’s comments about Bad Bunny, whose music isn’t universally embraced by the diverse Latino community. Still, he should choose his words more carefully, they said.
“Everybody agrees that we wish he would hold his mouth and hold his temper and be less impulsive,” said Denise Galvez Turros, who co-founded Latinas for Trump for his first run for office in 2016.
Nevertheless, she agrees with Trump’s criticism of the artist and defended the president’s comments about Bad Bunny’s use of Spanish, saying the singer’s Puerto Rican slang and lack of enunciation can make his lyrics hard to understand.
One source close to the White House said Trump needs to better engage with Latino and Black voters who were part of his winning coalition, warning the Bad Bunny episode could hasten their shift back to Democratic candidates.
The source, who has been in touch with officials about midterm election strategy, said there are plans for Trump to travel to districts in border areas and those with large Latino populations.
Rodriguez, the former Trump administration official, said even though she expected the Bad Bunny debate to die down, Republicans should make more use of Spanish-language spokespeople in addressing immigration raids and aggressively targeting the Latino vote.
“My biggest advice would be for them to not repeat the same mistakes as with the Democrats, who lost a big segment of the Latino population for a reason, because they felt like they were being taken for granted,” she said.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal, Tim Reid and David Hood-Nuño; Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Ross Colvin and Alistair Bell)
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