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Hispanic support shifts to Trump, leaving Biden behind

The incumbent's lead over his Republican challenger among Hispanic voters has fallen 29 points after his first year in office.

Hispanos con carteles que rezan

(Cordon Press)

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Williams Perdomo

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The 2024 presidential elections are approaching, and the Hispanic vote is becoming increasingly relevant. It is estimated that at least 36 million Hispanic voters will be able to participate in the electoral process in which Joe Biden and Donald Trump are expected to face off. In that sense, the focus is on the Hispanic vote, because the Hispanic community is drifting away from the current president and moving toward the Republican, as recently revealed by a new poll on Latinos by Axios-Ipsos in association with Noticias Telemundo.

In that sense, the study explained that Biden's advantage over Trump among Hispanic voters has fallen from 29 points after Biden's first year in office (53-24) to just nine points (41-32), amidst discontent over inflation and crime. Likewise, it was learned that Biden's advantage is reduced even further (to just three points) among Hispanics who said they plan to vote in November.

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. Trump is showing improvement among Latinos even though 52% of survey respondents said they worry that a mass deportation effort like what he's proposed would target all Latinos, regardless of immigration status.

Rasmussen had a similar analysis, which details that President Trump could win the Hispanic vote for the presidential election with 48% support, compared to 37% for Joe Biden.

"Cataclysmal for Democrats - HISPANIC VOTE GOES TRUMP. 26-point collapse of Hispanic support for Biden in just 4 years," the firm posted on X.

But the data should also worry Democrats. Republicans are gaining ground among Hispanic voters in two key states for the presidential elections. A poll by the American Principles Project (APP) showed that in a head-to-head matchup, Donald Trump and Joe Biden would be tied in Arizona, while in Nevada, Biden would lead by just two points.

"These are two of the seven swing states in these elections that could define the presidency, and Hispanics are key to deciding the results in these two states. What we see is that Trump and Biden are tied in these two states, which is a problem for Biden because he needs massive support from Hispanics to win in those states," explained the director of APP's Hispanic Engagement Area, Alfonso Aguilar, in a conversation with Voz Media.

A survey published in February already anticipated that Hispanics are no longer unconditionally Democratic. The Gallup study indicated that the Democrats' advantage among Hispanic voters aged 18-29 has decreased nearly 20 points over the past three years.

"Democrats’ 12-point advantage among Hispanic adults in 2023 represents a new low in trends dating back to 2011, when Gallup began routinely interviewing in Spanish as well as English,” Gallup explained.

These shifts in the party affiliation of key subgroups provide the demographic backstory for how Democrats went from enjoying significant leads over Republicans between 2012 and 2021, to slight deficits in 2022 and 2023.

The main reason why Hispanic voters have distanced themselves from the Democratic Party is the policy that Joe Biden has had to address issues such as the economy, immigration and public safety. Added to that, many Hispanic voters also do not agree with Biden's push for progressive policies. In that sense, Aguilar explained that, for example, 60% of respondents said they support measures to prevent men from competing in women's sports, 57% support the prohibition of gender reassignment surgeries for children under 18 years and 64% support requiring schools to notify parents if their child begins to identify as transgender.

"Something we saw is that Hispanics are dissatisfied with the social and cultural policies of the Biden administration and the Democrats. A very large majority, in both states, opposes children being taught gender ideology in schools. Furthermore, they say that the Democratic Party focuses too much on racial issues," Aguilar said.

Meanwhile, the Biden campaign is making efforts to recover from the exodus of its Hispanic base. Last month, during an event for Hispanic voters in Arizona, the current president acknowledged that he needs the support of this group to win the elections.

"I need you back," the Democratic president insisted during an event with Hispanic voters in Arizona, according to statements collected by The Guardian.

The data comes at a time when a report by the Cervantes Institute noted that Hispanics will have a major impact on U.S. politics and argued that "Spanish speakers are more conservative than English speakers on issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage and transgender people."

The 2020 presidential election was the first election in which Hispanics were the largest racial/ethnic minority eligible to vote. Some 32 million Hispanics were called to the polls, representing 13.3% of the U.S. electorate. The percentage of Hispanics over the age of 18 has grown steadily since the 2000 elections and now exceeds that of African-Americans (12.5%), whose relative weight has barely increased over the same period, and Asians (4.7%).
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