The voters Trump needed most have now turned their backs on him

Two years ago, political insiders were stunned by what happened in south Texas.

The whole country had swung towards Donald Trump in the 2024 election. But the swing along the border with Mexico was immense.

Fed up with a flood of migrants crossing the border, voters in south Texas went from being reliable Democrats to seemingly solid Republicans.

But things have changed.

In the city of Brownsville, a massive billboard shows Republican candidate Eric Flores giving a thumbs up next to Donald Trump.

"Trump-endorsed Republican Eric Flores for Congress," the billboard reads.

"Support ICE!"

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In 2024, it might be the sort of thing a candidate like Flores would have put up himself.

Now he’s decrying it as a dirty trick from the campaign of Democratic Congressman Vicente Gonzalez, who paid for the billboard.

The buyer's remorse is so strong in south Texas that touting Trump's endorsement is potentially toxic.

Flores has now issued a cease-and-desist to get the billboard taken down.

The backlash against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been particularly pronounced in south Texas. 

Voters wanted ICE to crack down on criminals crossing the border. Instead, ICE focused on detaining anybody who was not in the country legally.

In Texas, that's an estimated two million people.

Voters are now seeing friends, co-workers and law-abiding non-citizens being handcuffed, arrested and deported.

In the town of Ingram, where Trump got 80 per cent of the vote in 2024, one in ten locals have been deported in the past two years.

In Houston, Mexican father-of-three Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was shot dead by an ICE agent during a traffic stop. He had lived in the US for 35 years and had no criminal record.

A memorial for Araujo is now covered with hundreds of stickers that read: "I voted".

And the rough tactics of ICE has US citizens in Texas anxious for their own safety just because of the colour of their skin.

In Gonzales and Flores' battleground district, 90 percent of people identify as Hispanic.

Early voting has shown a surge of ballots being cast in Democratic-heavy areas of Texas, especially along the border.

James Talarico is now the favourite to win the Senate race, the first Democrat to win in Texas in a generation.

And Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican institution in the state, is now in the fight of his life against Democrat Gina Hinojosa, who grew up in Brownsville.

South Texas was a welcome shift towards Republicans in 2024, but the party is facing a greater existential threat in what is typically their safest territory.

The farm revolt

Republicans have long been dependent on overwhelming margins among rural voters.

Farmers and others in country areas are the most reliable Republican voters in the US, turning out in numbers each election.

But there has been a shift in mood among farmers, who have been hit harder than anyone else by Trump's policies.

The trade war has made it harder to buy necessities like fertiliser and to sell their food.

And the war in Iran has made diesel extraordinarily expensive.

This has added to costs everywhere, but farmers can't take the train to work like people in New York City.

Trump also angered cattle farmers by allowing cheap beef into the country while they struggled with drought.

Also angering rural voters is the proliferation of data centres in rural areas.

Drawn in by cheap land, data centres are popping up all over rural areas, driving up the costs of electricity and water and replacing valuable farmland.

Data centres are so unpopular that politicians on both sides are both running against them.

But not Trump, who has gone all in on the other side.

"The only reason that communities throughout the USA should not want Data Centres is if they want to end up being backwards and poor," Trump wrote on Truth Social in September.

"If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign."

The lack of enthusiasm among Republicans was palpable at a rally last week.

Trump has long been able to get his supporters to cheer for all sorts of things, but as he extolled data centres, the crowd was stony in their silence.

Conservatives are not at risk of losing most of its country strongholds, but Democrats could win thanks to enthusiastic support in cities if Republicans in the regions decide not to vote.

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Election Day is November 3.