Democratic Candidates Leading Trump By Huge Margin Among Latino Voters
A new poll finds President Trump trailing his potential Democratic opponents by huge margins among Latino voters.
A new poll indicates that the top tier Democrats lead President Trump among Latino voters by as much as 40 percent, a number that, if it holds, could have a significant impact on the outcome of the Presidential race in a numbers of states:
A new poll released Tuesday shows all top-tier Democratic presidential candidates leading President Trump by more than 40 percentage points among Hispanic registered voters nationwide.
The Univision poll, conducted by Latino Decisions and North Star Opinion Research, shows that 73 percent of Hispanic voters surveyed plan to vote for a Democratic candidate, while only 16 percent plan to vote for Trump.
That’s a drop for Trump, who won around 19 percent of the Hispanic vote according to 2016 polling by Latino Decisions
Exit polls showed Trump winning as much as 29 percent of the Hispanic vote, but that figure has been disputed as exit polls tend to be inaccurate when measuring minorities.
Trump also fares poorly against specific Democratic presidential candidates, with the biggest gaps in direct match-ups against former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
But Trump’s support in direct match-ups is also highest against Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the two Democratic front-runners more closely identified with the progressive wing of the party.
Biden leads Trump in national Hispanic voter intent 71 percent to 15 percent, according to the poll, while Sanders has a 71 percent to 18 percent lead.
Warren and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), the other two Democratic front-runners in most polls, each have 65 percent Hispanic support in match-ups against Trump.
In a direct match-up against Harris, Trump would get 16 percent of Hispanic votes, while he would garner 20 percent against Warren, according to the poll.
The poll also measured match-ups between Trump and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.).
Castro leads Trump among Hispanics 66 percent to 18 percent, and Booker leads 65 percent to 21 percent.
Biden and Sanders also have strong leads among Hispanic voters for the Democratic presidential nomination, according to the poll.
Biden has the support of 21 percent of respondents, while 20 percent support Sanders.
By way of reference, it worth noting that President Trump received 28% of the Latino vote in the 2016 election according to Exit Polls. This actually came as somewhat of a surprise given the position that Trump took as a candidate on immigration issues, his campaign promise to build a border wall that Mexico would pay for, and the disparaging remarks he made about immigrants in general Mexicans in particular. This was roughly comparable to the 27% of the Latino vote that Mitt Romney received in 2012 although not as good as the 31% that John McCain received in 2008, the 46% of the Latino vote that George W. Bush received in 2004, or the 35% share that he received in 2000. By way of further comparison, Bob Dole received 21% of the Latino vote in 1996, George H.W. Bush received 25% in 1992 and 30% in 1988, and Ronald Reagan received 34% in 1984 and 37% in 1980. In other words, if these numbers hold up through Election Day, then President Trump would receive the smallest share of the Latino vote of any Republican nominee in the previous ten Presidential elections.
The fact that Latino voters are so turned off by Trump is not surprising, of course. While Trump’s rhetoric during the campaign was just that, the actual policies that he has implemented since becoming President, specifically on matters involving immigration, has done more than enough to demonstrate to Latino Americans how he feels about them and what he would do if he were re-elected. As I said, this includes everything from the border wall and the family separation policy to his Administration’s barbaric treatment of children who have arrived at the border. For Latino Americans, the past three years have been nothing but a constant assault by an Administration that is doing everything it can to send the message that people like them are not welcome in Donald Trump’s America.
If these numbers hold up through Election Day 2020, then they could have a significant impact on the outcome in crucial battleground states such as Florida as well as potential battlegrounds such as Georgia, North Carolina, and Arizona, all of which have growing Latino populations. The problem that Democrats face in this regard is that Latino voters have not tended to turn out in nearly the kind of numbers that Democrats would need for them to make a difference in these states. If that can be turned around next year then it could pose a real problem for Trump in the aforementioned states, or perhaps others. If not, then it could be another missed opportunity for Democrats.
It’s lovely that Trump is basically gifting the fastest growing demo in the US to Democrats. Latino voters have never been as united as black voters, nor as wedded to the Democratic Party. And now they are.
Core GOP constituencies: old people, old white people, old white evangelical Christians, gun nuts of all ages, the poorly educated, rustics, racists, nativists, women-haters and sociopathic greed pigs.
Core Democratic constituencies: black, brown and Asian, the young, gays, the educated – especially educated women, the urban, the secular, environmentalists.
Bingo.
Dems have not been able to figure out how to get Hispanic voters to the polls, so they need to consider Hispanics a, nice to have, constituency rather than a core constituency.
I just want to note that this is one reason that I think Texas may well swing blue this cycle. I believe Texas in in play.
@Sleeping Dog:
We need to fix that attitude. W/o the two US Senate seats picked up in Nevada and Arizona in 2018, getting a majority in the Senate in 2020 would be pretty much impossible. 2020 is still going to be tough w/o two more Southwestern seats, Colorado and the other Arizona seat.
Remember what Pete Wilson managed to do to the Republican Party in California?
Might be that Trump will have proven to have done the same (down the road) to the entire U.S…..
Expect fireworks when Texas starts voting blue consistently.
@Sleeping Dog:
Part of the problem is that a not insignificant amount of those voters reluctantly support Democrats. On many issues, when you dive into the numbers, they would normally align with Republicans, except they’ve been chased out of the party in recent years.
So while they won’t vote for Trump, there’s not a significant drive to vote for the Democrat. And that doesn’t translate into a urgency to vote.
@Michael Cain:
When Hispanic begin coming out and voting in the numbers that reflect their proportion of the population, I’ll be fixed, but until then, I’m not counting on them.
@grumpy realist:
I saw an interview recently with an advocate for the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Interestingly, the guy was a Republican (a Hispanic Republican at that). He argued that as states like Florida and Texas become increasingly blue, it will reach a point where Republicans feel shut out by the EC, and they’ll eventually sign on to the compact.
Why do I get the feeling ICE will peruse new voter registration forms for “undocumented immigrants” to deport? Arrest now and let them prove to a court they really are US citizens…. in 2021.
@mattbernius: “So while they won’t vote for Trump, there’s not a significant drive to vote for the Democrat.”
Until someone they know is arrested by ICE and held for days or weeks or months despite being able to prove they’re either here legally or a citizen. That’s the kind of thing that tends to get people voting…
Just as it is crazy for any non-millionaire to vote for Republicans, it is equally loony for any Hispanic person to vote for the GOP…it’d be like if blacks voted (if and when they were actually allowed to vote) for James O. Eastland or Lester Maddox back in the day…it is rather delicious, though, how many of the non-racist conservative ideas of Republicans appeal to many black and Hispanic people, but…pity that whole rampant racist thing gets in the way…
@An Interested Party:
Nah. Voting for Republicans also makes perfect sense if you’re a white supremacist, a gay-basher, an anti-abortion fanatic, an Evangelical Christian theocrat, an amoral white-collar worker in the coal or financial or soybean industry, a doomsday prepper, a Russian sleeper agent, a big fan of Bibi Netanyahu and Likud, an anarchist, …
Drumpf is going to cause the GOP to lose Texas for generations to come.
How many times does this need to be debunked- Bush got 40% of the Hispanic vote in 2004- the exit poll was proven to be statistically flawed.
To pilfer from the late Ed Koch, a Latino would have to be crazy to vote for Donald Trump.
Lest anyone should criticize Joe Biden for his mental fitness, get a load of this ridiculous thing…the love is indeed palpable…
@OzarkHillbilly: Sadly, that’s not a bad plan. It would be good if we could rely on the Trump administration to implement it, but the GOP has capable operations in most states that can get it done. 🙁