As voters across Texas rejected Republicans to elect their first Democratic senator and governor in decades, nowhere was the shift more pronounced than in heavily Latino South Texas.

From Brownsville through Laredo and up to Eagle Pass, heavily Hispanic counties in the region favored Democrats by margins that averaged over 40 points. That made for a stark contrast with President Donald Trump’s gains two years ago, when he swept the area’s traditional Democratic strongholds.

A shift in policy priorities helped drive the reversal. Concerns over immigration dominated the 2024 election in South Texas after a surge in border crossings under former President Joe Biden. Now, with Trump having dropped the flow to the lowest in decades, just 7% of Hispanic Texans named it as the most important problem in one October survey. Instead, 38% cited the economy or high prices.

In a state known for pickup trucks and other large vehicles, fuel prices emerged as a particular concern, the survey showed. Gasoline and diesel prices have jumped this year amid Trump’s war in Iran.

“This was an election about the economy,” said Miguel Solis, a Democratic strategist and former board president of the Dallas school district. “This wasn’t an issue of Democrats’ specific message to Latinos, it was talking about the issues that Hispanics care the most about, which are the economy, good schools and healthcare.”The Democratic advance among Latinos wasn’t limited to Texas. The party also made gains in Florida, even if it they weren’t enough to deliver electoral wins.

Democratic Senate candidate Angie Nixon lost to Republican Ashley Moody but won majority-Latino precincts by about 7 points, according to the elections-analysis firm VoteHub. In Doral, a heavily Latino city in Miami-Dade County, Nixon beat Moody by more than 3 points. Trump carried the city by 23 percentage points in 2024.

But the Texas shift among Latinos loomed large in the wipeout of Republicans that unfolded around the state.

In Hidalgo County, the most populous of the Rio Grande Valley, Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico defeated GOP rival Ken Paxton by 46 points. More than 90% of residents are Latino, and frustration with the economy and Trump’s immigration crackdown have inflamed tempers in a county where Trump notched a 3-point victory over Kamala Harris in 2024.

One of Talarico’s largest victory margins came in Starr County, where 97% of residents are Hispanic and 77% of voters backed him. That was 35 points more than the percentage Harris got in the county two years ago. The trend reverberated down the ballot.

Gina Hinojosa, who won election as the state’s first Hispanic governor, ran up wide margins against Republican incumbent Greg Abbott. In Webb County, where Latinos account for 95% of the population, Hinojosa led Abbott by 40 points. That nearly doubled the margin achieved in 2022 by Democratic gubernatorial nominee Beto O’Rourke.

After Trump flipped many border counties in 2024, the state’s Republican-dominated legislature redrew three South Texas congressional districts with an eye toward ejecting Democrats and replacing them with GOP candidates. The assumption was that the region’s Latino voters would remain loyal to Republicans.

Those changes backfired, as Democrats swept to victory in all of those districts. They also flipped another border district, where lawyer and former teacher Katy Padilla Stout defeated Republican Brandon Herrera, a firearms manufacturer and social-media influencer known as the AK Guy.