SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras—Hondurans cast ballots in a presidential election that was thrown into disarray in its final days after President Trump endorsed one candidate and promised to pardon a former Honduran president serving a prison sentence in the U.S. for turning the Central American nation into a narco-state.
The election was expected to be close even before Trump’s actions injected more uncertainty into the process. Long lines formed around some polling stations on Sunday. Aside from a new president, more than six million voters will elect 128 legislators and cast ballots for hundreds of other posts.
This is the second time in recent months that Trump has inserted himself into national elections across Latin America. In October, Trump conditioned an economic rescue package for Argentina to President Javier Milei party’s victory in midterm elections. Argentines, fearing an economic implosion, voted overwhelmingly for the country’s ruling party.
The outcome isn’t clear in Honduras, an impoverished nation that relies heavily on U.S.-bound migrants.
“We don’t like Trump because he has affected thousands of households who depend on remittances due to his mass deportations,” said José Antonio Rodríguez, a pensioner who voted for leftist presidential candidate Rixi Moncada of the ruling Libre party.
“Honduras has suffered greatly from drug trafficking, and now Trump wants to send us a drug lord,” said the 73-year-old Rodríguez.
Most polls put Moncada behind Salvador Nasralla, a 72-year old sports journalist and media personality who briefly served as vice president in the administration of outgoing President Xiomara Castro.
Trump last week urged Hondurans to elect a third candidate, Nasry “Tito” Asfura, the candidate of the conservative National party and former mayor of the capital of Tegucigalpa. He associated Moncada with Communists, and said Nasralla’s candidacy would split the anti-Communist vote.
Nasralla told reporters on Sunday he expected Trump’s comments to boost Moncada and her Libre party.
Honduras is one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere and has long been plagued by endemic corruption, gang violence and unemployment. In recent years, undocumented Hondurans have been at the forefront of the U.S.-bound migration wave from Central America.
Hondurans working in the U.S. have sent some $10 billion in remittances so far this year, more than the whole of 2024, according to government data. The Trump administration has deported close to 30,000 Hondurans in 2025, on track to double the number of deportations in 2024.
When Trump on Wednesday endorsed Asfura, he conditioned U.S. aid to Asfura winning the poll. Asfura has a reputation as a can-do executive who built roads and bridges during his time as mayor.
“If he doesn’t win, the United States will not be throwing good money,” Trump said. “Tito and I can work together to fight the narco-communists and provide the necessary aid to the Honduran people.”
Then on Friday, Trump announced plans to pardon former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted by a New York jury and sentenced to 45 years in prison. U.S. prosecutors said that he helped smuggle 400 tons of cocaine to the U.S. and turned Honduras into a narco-state where Hernández and other members of his National party protected drug shipments in exchange for millions of dollars in bribes, much of which went to tighten the party’s hold on power.
Trump also said that he wanted to stop Venezuela’s authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro from extending his influence in the region, posting that Maduro and his “narcoterrorists” would “take over another country” if ruling party candidate Moncada wins the election.
“If Asfura wins, Trump will help us,” said Denis Hernández, a businessman in San Pedro Sula, the country’s business hub.
But Hernández’s proposed pardon made little sense to some Hondurans, since he was convicted of the same sort of accusations Trump has made against Maduro. In 2020, U.S. prosecutors charged Maduro with turning Venezuela into a narco-state. Maduro denies the accusations.
“Hondurans don’t want to suffer again a wave of drug violence that in the past decade left more than 60,000 dead,” said Félix Bueno, a businessman who planned to vote for Moncada of the ruling party.
Trump’s promise of a pardon to former President Hernández risks causing a broader backlash, hurting the chances of the two conservative candidates, observers said.
Election authorities have said they would issue preliminary election results Sunday night. But candidates could challenge the vote count unless there is an indisputable landslide.
In 2017, Hernández’s thin re-election win sparked weeks of protests amid fraud accusations, leaving at least 17 people dead.
