CV NEWS FEED // According to a new poll, Hispanic and Latino voters are increasingly turning on President Joe Biden in favor of the presumptive Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump.
At the same time, the poll shows that Latino voters still heavily identify with, and may be slightly trending toward the Democratic Party.
The Axios/Ipsos poll “of over 1,000 Latino/Hispanic Americans” was published Tuesday and “conducted in partnership with Noticias Telemundo” from March 22 to March 28.
The poll measured the change in Latino voters’ favorability ratings of Biden and Trump from December 2021 to March 2024.
It found that over this period of time, Biden’s average favorability rating among Latinos fell 12 points (from 53% to 41%), while Trump’s favorability rating among Latinos increased by eight points (from 24% to 32%).
Therefore, Axios noted that in the last two years and four months of his presidency, Biden’s favorability “advantage over Trump among all Latinos” fell by a total of 20 points (from 29% to 9%).
“Biden’s lead shrinks even further — to 3 points — among Latinos who said they plan to vote in November,” Axios continued:
The poll didn’t ask specifically about independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who’s seeking to get on the ballot in most states. But 11% of Latino registered and likely voters said they expect to back neither Biden nor Trump, and 28% said they weren’t sure.
The poll also demonstrated that there is an apparent disconnect between Latino voters’ choice of candidate and party.
While an increasing number of Hispanic and Latino Americans are abandoning Biden in favor of Trump, the numbers don’t seem to translate into gains for the Republican Party as a whole.
“Among all Latinos, Democrats appear to be closing in on Republicans in two areas the GOP has largely dominated in recent polls — boosting the economy and fighting crime,” Axios reported.
“Republicans had a 3-point edge on which party was better dealing with the economy, compared to a 7-point edge in the 2023 survey,” Axios’ report continued. “Republicans had a 4-point edge on which party was better in dealing with crime; a year ago it was 8 points.”
However, when respondents were asked about which candidate was better suited to tackle these issues, they favored Trump by significantly larger numbers.
“Latinos gave Trump a 22-point edge over Biden when it comes to dealing with the economy, and an 11-point edge on fighting crime,” Axios stated.
>> CATHOLICVOTE UNVEILS IMMIGRATION AD: ‘PROTECT THE VULNERABLE’ <<
Ipsos senior vice president Chris Jackson observed that among the polled Latino voters, “[i]n almost every case, Trump performs better than the Republican brand and Biden performs worse than the Democratic brand.”
“If anything, Democrats are actually slightly better positioned relative to Republicans versus when we’d asked this last June 2023 … across all sorts of different issues,” the pollster added.
On the morning of the poll’s release, an X (formerly Twitter) account managed by the Republican National Committee (RNC) went on the offensive noting that “Biden is hemorrhaging support among Hispanic voters.”
The RNC also criticized recent remarks Biden made in an interview with Spanish-language media outlet Univision. “Look at the way [Trump] talks about minority populations — Hispanics,” the incumbent president said.
“Biden is, of course, completely lying to manufacture division and hate,” the RNC X account commented.
Conservative journalist Kyle Becker further noted that these kinds of Democratic attacks may not be resonating with Latino voters.
“‘[I]llegal alien’ is not equivalent to ‘Latino,’” Becker pointed out on X Tuesday morning. “Americans are not complaining about Latinos who immigrate legally. Donald Trump’s statements about criminal illegal aliens are also not equivalent to legal migrants.”
“Trump called human traffickers, fentanyl smugglers, and cartel members ‘animals,’ not all immigrants,” he indicated.
“Latinos are beginning to see past the media’s lies,” Becker concluded. “The Democrats have ruined the economy and legal migrants see the damage to the nation being caused by illegal migrants.”
Support from Hispanic and Latino voters will especially be crucial to Biden and Trump’s chances in Arizona and Nevada – two battleground states which many observers say can potentially decide the election.
According to an Axios report from last month, “[a]bout a quarter of Arizona voters who [will] cast a ballot in November are expected to be Latino.” In Nevada, roughly one in five voters are Latino.
Last month, CatholicVote noted that a late February New York Times / Siena poll “found that Trump is leading Biden among Hispanic voters by a convincing six points.”
“No Republican presidential nominee has won a majority of the Hispanic vote in American history,” CatholicVote added at the time.
The Hispanic and Latino vote has significantly and consistently trended to the right over the past few election cycles.
From CatholicVote’s February report:
Trump lost the Hispanic vote to Biden by 21 points in 2020, per the Pew Research Center. However, this was a substantially smaller margin than in 2016, when Hillary Clinton carried the Hispanics over Trump by 38 points.
In 2012, Obama bested Republican challenger Mitt Romney among Hispanics by 44 points.
