Many members of Colorado’s Latino community fear they could be arrested by federal immigration authorities and have changed their daily lives to avoid it, a recent poll found — even as Latinos remain predominantly focused on economic concerns ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
“In every aspect of life, Latinos have attenuated their normal behavior and avoided critical locations, like work and school, in order to stay clear of the immigration (enforcement) surge,” pollster Gary Segura told reporters upon releasing the results.
The issues identified more broadly in the Colorado Latino Agenda poll, which was released earlier this month, reflect a growing national consensus among all voters, not just Latinos. The overwhelming concern with affordability — respondents’ top four issues all related to the cost of living and the economy — shows that economic fears have endured through President Donald Trump’s first nine months in office, with recent elections across the country notching wins for Democrats who focused on the issue.
But the results also revealed mounting fear about an erosion of civil rights and discontent with the Republican president’s efforts to rapidly arrest and deport millions of immigrants without proper legal status.
Forty percent of the registered voters who participated in the survey said they or their communities feared that immigration authorities would arrest them, even if they’re U.S. citizens or have some kind of legal status. And 30% said they or their communities feared interacting with or calling the police, while 28% said they or their communities feared attending regular immigration proceedings because they could be arrested.
Asked whether civil rights had improved under Trump, 62% said they hadn’t, compared to 20% who said they had.
Those results also reflect that Latino voters are aware of how the federal government is carrying out its immigration agenda. Immigrants have repeatedly been arrested while attending regular immigration hearings, as advocates have said and court filings reviewed by The Denver Post have indicated.
ProPublica, a nonprofit news outlet, reported last month that more than 170 U.S. citizens have been detained by immigration authorities nationwide this year. Immigrants with legal status and work permits, like a Douglas County teacher arrested last month, have also been caught up in raids and arrests.
“The actions of the Trump administration are fundamentally changing the way that Latino citizens are interacting with their government,” said Phil Chen, a political science professor at the University of Denver who reviewed the poll. “A quarter of them say that they or their community are missing classes because parents are worried about being arrested driving to school. I read (those results) as deeply, deeply troubling.”
About 23% of Colorado residents are of Hispanic or Latino origin, according to the State Demography Office.
The poll was conducted by a bipartisan polling team last month. It surveyed 400 Latino registered voters in Colorado (meaning all respondents are U.S. citizens). Its margin of error was plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.
Concerns with Trump, Republicans
Latino Coloradans, who have tended to vote Democratic but not monolithically, also expressed mounting concerns with the Trump administration and Republicans who control Congress. Eighty-one percent of respondents said they were concerned that Congress wasn’t acting as a check on Trump. Asked who was to blame for the recent government shutdown, 61% said the president and his party, compared to 23% who blamed Democrats. Two-thirds disapproved of Trump’s performance in office.
There was also a “very concerning” bleed of support from formerly Trump-supporting Latino voters, Segura said. More than a third of respondents said they’d voted for Trump in 2024.
The vast majority of that group — 80% — said they would vote for him again. But 13% said they wouldn’t, and the remaining 7% said they were unsure. Of those who supported then-Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, 91% said they would vote for her again, and the remaining share said they weren’t sure.
“When there’s a party that holds all of the levers of power in the federal government, (voters) are going to blame that party for things they think are not going well and probably give them credit for things that are going well,” Chen said. “This is the pattern we expect to find in every off-year and midterm election.
“So if you were (U.S. Rep.) Gabe Evans or the state Republican Party, I think it’s really important to start thinking about how you talk about issues around affordability — around housing costs, food costs, inflation, job opportunities, things like that.”
Evans, a Republican, represents the 8th Congressional District stretching from the northern Denver suburbs to Greeley, and it’s one of the most contested congressional seats in the country. Much of his successful 2024 campaign focused on immigration and public safety.
‘Latinos are looking for leadership’
Still, criticism of Trump doesn’t necessarily mean Latino voters are running straight into the arms of the Democratic Party, said Alex Sánchez, the president and CEO of Voces Unidas, which is part of the coalition that released the poll.
Fifty-two percent of self-identified independents surveyed in the poll said they either didn’t know which party they’d support next year or that they wanted to support someone else. (A plurality of independents, 35%, said they would support Democrats, compared to 12% for Republicans.)
“There are warning signs to both parties in the data,” Sánchez said in an interview. “While, yes, Colorado Democrats fare better … they’re not too far from the danger zone. That’s what we see in the data: a clear sign that Latinos are looking for leadership, are looking for results.”
He added about Latinos: “We are not brand loyal. We don’t carry the party loyalty the same way that other voters do. Latinas and Latinos historically vote based on value and vote based on results, instead of party sticker and party label.”
Despite the unpopularity of the Trump administration’s mass-deportation efforts, affordability concerns were still far and away the top concerns for voters. Forty-eight percent of respondents said the cost of living and inflation were their top priority.
Housing affordability, jobs and the economy, and health care were the next-highest priorities, followed by gun violence and, in sixth, immigration. More than half of respondents said it was most important for election officials to tackle either prices and affordability, or wages and good jobs.
That’s unsurprising, Chen said. Affordability was a dominant issue in elections elsewhere in the U.S. earlier this month, he said, and has remained a top issue for all Colorado voters for years.
With next year’s midterms approaching, the New York Times reported that the Trump administration had begun floating new affordability ideas in recent weeks as it faces the reality that Americans are still pessimistic about the economy as they struggle with higher prices.
“You can think of (the immigration crackdown) as a problem. It can affect your impressions of President Trump,” Chen said. “But when it comes to how (Latinos) are going to vote, (they’re) going to vote on the thing that’s really affected me, which is the economy.”
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