ICE protests, Bad Bunny flip script on Trump’s midterms playbook
Republicans are increasingly nervous that President Donald Trump’s slipping support on immigration and the economy — two key issues that helped him win in 2024 — could cost them the midterm elections. The Super Bowl halftime show won’t help their anxiety.
The performance by Bad Bunny, the Puerto Rican global music star and outspoken critic of Trump’s immigration policies, is expected to underscore on one of the world’s biggest stages the political and cultural divide over the administration’s crackdown that led to the killing of two Americans in Minneapolis and spurred protests nationwide.
Trump’s border and immigration policies had been popular among the electorate over much of the past year. But after weeks of seeing masked federal agents tackling people on the street, detaining children and killing a pair of US citizens, just 34% of voters approve of how officials are enforcing the policy, down six points from two weeks prior, according to a Feb. 4 Quinnipiac poll.
Republicans, meanwhile, are negotiating with Democrats on a spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security. They have less than a week to make a deal or risk a shutdown at the department at the center of the immigration crackdown.
Several Republicans, who have largely been in lock-step with the administration, say the immigration raids went too far.
“We should’ve focused on criminals and gang members, not grandmothers. That was a mistake,” Rep. Carlos Gimenez, a Florida Republican and former mayor of Miami-Dade county, said this week on Fox News.
Even after announcing the withdrawal of 700 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from Minnesota and an earlier drawdown in Maine, Trump’s hardline approach threatens to isolate Latino voters ahead of the midterms, sidelining a critical voter bloc that helped him get elected.
The consequences were on display last week when a solid Republican Texas state senate seat flipped blue: the 31-point swing to the Democrats was largely driven by the district’s Latino electorate. That followed a string of election victories late last year in which Democrats outperformed expectations, from the Virginia governor’s race to the Miami mayoral vote.
Read more: Texas Democrat’s Shock Win Powered by Latinos, 31-Point Flip
“A swing of this magnitude is not something that can be dismissed,” Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis said in a social media post on Feb. 1, citing the Texas results. “Republicans should be clear-eyed about the political environment heading into the midterms.”
Republican strategist Mike Madrid, who specializes in Latino voters, said the president’s immigration and economic policies have turned key voting blocs away from him. He emphasized that the Republican loss in Texas was remarkable given how Trump performed in 2024.
“I’ve never seen that in three-and-a-half decades of work,” Madrid said. “The two strengths that he had in building a multiracial coalition have not only collapsed, but they have really cemented against him.”
Though half of Latinos backed Trump in 2024, a recent Pew Research Center poll showed 70% now disapprove of him, including 61% who say his policies have made economic conditions worse. While the survey was conducted before the latest protests erupted, about two-thirds said they disagree with Trump’s approach to immigration, with more than half of Latinos saying arrests or raids have taken place in their community since the president took office.
“In the past, it had always been the economy over immigration as an issue,” said Mark Lopez, director of race and ethnicity research at Pew. But now, “a growing share of Latinos say that they’re worried about deportations of somebody they know or even themselves.”
“And so all things are pointing to immigration rising as an issue,” he added.
After Trump took office, the largely Spanish-speaking Bad Bunny said he would avoid the mainland US on his next world tour, saying he didn’t want to put his fans at risk of being arrested by ICE at his shows.
“ICE out,” the artist, whose name is Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio, said at the Grammy Awards on Feb. 1. “We’re not savage, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens. We are humans and we are Americans.”
Alternate Show
Trump won’t tune in to watch the halftime show, the White House has said, but more than 100 million others will.
In protest over Bad Bunny’s leading role at the Super Bowl, critics have organized an alternate “All-American Halftime Show” headlined by Trump supporter Kid Rock and backed by the late Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA group.
Besides withdrawing hundreds of ICE agents, the White House has taken other steps to deescalate tensions in Minneapolis. Tom Homan, the administration’s border czar, was sent in to replace Greg Bovino, the controversial on-the-ground commander who critics say fueled conflict. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem also said that all officers in Minneapolis will now wear a body camera.
Trump said in an interview this week on NBC that he was “not happy with what happened” in Minnesota, adding that “maybe we can use a little bit of a softer touch, but you still have to be tough.”
The president also sought to assuage Americans who feel that his economic policies have let them down, touting an affordability agenda and saying he’ll aim to help put things like homeownership more in reach. So far, most of the initial proposals have fallen flat.
“I don’t think it matters how much Republicans want to change the narrative around affordability,” said Democratic strategist Chuck Rocha, who specializes in Latino voters. “All that people in the community see is terror in our streets.”
Even with the midterm elections still nine months away, many Republicans worry the damage has already been done.
“Hispanics are leaving the GOP in large numbers, and pretending otherwise won’t fix it,” Representative Maria Elvira Salazar, a south Florida Republican, said in a social media post on Jan. 27. “As Republicans, we must reverse course and act now.”
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com