2025 Elections: Light at the End of the Tunnel

Maribel Hastings

Posted November 20, 2025

On November 9, President Donald Trump was booed by spectators at an NFL football game outside Washington, D.C., one of the areas hardest hit by the government shutdown and massive layoffs of federal employees since Trump’s return to the White House.

Recently, voters also booed him at the polls, favoring Democratic candidates and initiatives in New Jersey, Virginia, New York, and California, among other places, in a clear repudiation of the president’s economic and immigration agendas.

The reality is that Trump has delivered on all the negative things he promised.

Recent opinion polls are not favorable for Trump, following the wear and tear his public policies have caused among the population and their impact on consumers’ pockets. From tariffs to mass detentions and deportations that not only separate families but also impact various sectors of the economy, resulting in rising product prices.

Trump’s handling of the government shutdown, which resulted in furloughed employees, interrupted services such as food aid, and thousands of canceled flights, has taken a toll on his approval ratings.

Add to that everything that has been dragging on since January, namely, more federal employee layoffs, chaos in government agencies, total disregard for due process and the rule of law by using the Department of Justice as a political tool to take revenge on those he considers his political enemies. Skyrocketing food and housing prices, a cruel immigration policy focused on racial profiling that targets undocumented immigrants and citizens alike. And his enactment of a new law that cuts Medicaid for millions, eliminates subsidies for people to pay their affordable health insurance premiums, Obamacare, and cuts funds to the SNAP food assistance program.

While millions face food insecurity due to the government shutdown and others see their health insurance premiums skyrocket, Trump, the “king of empathy,” is devoting his efforts to building a ballroom in the east wing of the White House.

But the election results on November 4 suggest that not all voters were brainwashed. Women, young men, and Latinos tended to favor Democratic candidates over Republicans. This may be a prelude to the 2026 midterm elections. Still, everything depends on voter mobilization and the proposals put forward by the Democrats, who do not enjoy high approval ratings in Congress due to many broken promises.

In 2024, support for Trump among Latino voters was one of the factors in winning those elections. Trump and the Republicans knew how to exploit discontent over the worrying direction the economy was already taking. To such an extent that many Latinos even overlooked Trump’s campaign promise of mass deportations. They believed him when he said he would focus only on criminals. But they soon realized that there is no distinction, and many Hispanics who voted for him have seen their own relatives detained and deported.

In addition, the viciousness with which ICE agents and Border Patrol agents conduct themselves, their level of cruelty, violence, and excessive use of force, has resonated with Latino voters and other sectors as well.

Likewise, the effect of severe cuts to Medicaid, SNAP, and the elimination of subsidies for Obamacare remains to be seen. Interestingly, many of these cuts will not take effect immediately; some will start next year, and others will take effect later. In any case, reports on the severity of the cuts that will leave millions without health coverage have been widespread. These cuts will finance permanent tax cuts for billionaires.

All in all, Trump is acting as if everything is in his favor, protected by the fact that he has a Republican-majority Congress on his side and a Supreme Court that supports him most of the time.

The reality is that Trump has delivered on all the negative things he promised. In the run-up to the midterm and general elections, the American people must not ignore the signs of what he may do to maintain his party’s or his own power by hindering voting methods, such as mail-in voting, resorting to intimidation by sending immigration agents to polling stations, or fabricating emergencies to militarize cities.

There is light at the end of the tunnel, but there is still a long way to go to find a way out.

Maribel Hastings is a Senior Advisor to América’s Voice.