Donald Trump appeared to make real inroads with Indian Americans in 2024, a voting bloc that has traditionally favored Democrats, winning the support of 30% of the community that year—up from 22% in 2020—according to a report published on Nov. 2 by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Charts in the study show that GOP support among Indian American women and men aged 40 and older was still climbing as recently as January of this year.

Two years into Trump's second term, however, those gains had vanished ahead of the midterms, elections that decide every seat in the U.S. House and roughly one-third of the Senate. Of the 1,000 Indian American adults Carnegie surveyed from Oct. 7 to Oct. 27, just 19% said they intended to vote for the Republican in their House district, compared with 62% who planned to back the Democrat. Democrats held a similar advantage in Senate races, leading Republicans 63% to 21%.

The reversal coincided with the Trump administration's crackdown on legal immigration through H1-B visa restrictions, increasingly vocal anti-Indian rhetoric from some Republicans, and renewed concerns about the rising cost of living—forces that eroded the GOP's appeal even among the voters it had begun to win over.

Devesh Kapur, a professor of South Asia studies at Johns Hopkins University who co-authored the Carnegie report, told Fortune that economic concerns drew Indian Americans toward Trump in 2024, when voters were frustrated by inflation and the rising cost of living under Joe Biden. But those same anxieties, compounded by Trump's immigration politics and a rise in anti-Indian racism, helped turn Indian American voters away again.

“It's a combination of these three factors,” he said.

A blunt illustration of what Kapur called the “racist rhetoric in the MAGA crowd” came in September, when Bo French, the GOP candidate for Texas railroad commissioner—a statewide elected regulatory post—posted a photo on X of a crowd of South Asian students celebrating a University of Texas at Austin football victory.

“I heard UT graduation this year looked like this,” French wrote. “I didn't believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.”

Members of French's own party, including Sen. John Cornyn, condemned the post. Still, its circulation revived Indian Americans' concern that Republicans do not fully welcome the community.

Amrita Bhasin, the CEO of AI-powered supply chain platform Sotira, told Fortune that more vocal anti-South Asian rhetoric from political figures has pushed away Indian American voters more than changes to immigration policy alone.

“I actually don't think the racism is any worse than it was pre-Trump,” she said. “What's different now is that politicians and people in power feel comfortable saying racist things out loud, specifically about South Asian people.”

In her view, Trump's proposal in August of a $103,265 surcharge on companies hiring workers on H1-B visas—the visa category that lets U.S. employers hire foreign workers in specialty occupations—also played a role. H1-B visa holders generally cannot vote, but Indian Americans may have relatives, friends, or colleagues whose ability to work in the United States depends on the program. Indians account for 71% of all H1-B visa approvals and have a strong presence in tech jobs and other highly skilled professions, so the restrictions send a message that they do not belong, Bhasin said.

“I think the H-1B is part of it, but really the H-1B is a symptom of a bigger issue,” she said. “When you see that this work is not being respected in the same way, it feels like the Republicans maybe are not on the side of Indians.”

Religion as another wedge

Republicans have long believed Indian Americans should be receptive to their platform. David Frum, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush, called Indian Americans “natural conservative voters” because of their high incomes, educational backgrounds, and entrepreneurship. Indian journalist Sadanand Dhume, now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, argued in a 2012 essay for the conservative American Enterprise Institute that “interests, values, and history all suggest that the natural political home for Indian-Americans is the GOP.”

Kapur, however, pointed to the “growing grip” of evangelical Christianity within the GOP as a factor limiting its appeal to Indian American voters. The Carnegie report found that nearly one in three Indian American Christians (31%) identified as Republicans, compared with 21% of Hindus, 10% of Muslims, and just 8% of those with no religious affiliation.

“Since the majority are not Christian, that alone becomes a singular sort of impediment,” Kapur said. “There's no way to get around it.”

That religious tension surfaced prominently in Texas politics. In 2023, Democratic state lawmaker James Talarico raised the potential alienation of Hindu students during a legislative hearing on a GOP bill requiring public schools to display the Ten Commandments. “How do you think it makes a Hindu student feel to have a poster in every classroom that says ‘thou shall not worship any God before me’?” he asked.

Three years later, Talarico defeated GOP candidate Ken Paxton to become the first Democrat to win a U.S. Senate seat in Texas since 1988. In Fort Bend County—home to the Houston suburb of Sugar Land and its sizable Indian American community—Talarico won 63% of the vote to Paxton's nearly 35%, according to county election returns.

But Indian Americans voting against Republicans in the midterms did not necessarily reflect a deeper loyalty to the Democratic Party. About 35% of Indian Americans who planned to vote Democrat said they were motivated by opposition to Republicans rather than support for Democrats, per the Carnegie report.

“Anger or feeling of antipathy towards the Republican Party was clearly an important factor over and above the support for the Democrat Party per se,” Kapur said.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.