Poll: Harris forges healthy 27% lead over Trump with Latino voters
Kamala Harris leads former President Donald Trump by nearly 30% among Latino voters nationwide, a poll revealed Wednesday — a significantly larger margin than other recent surveys.
The Democratic nominee has the backing of 59% of Latino voters compared to 32% for Trump, according to the poll of more than 3,000 voters carried out by Unidos, a non-partisan Latino civil rights group. Those projections put her on track to come close to the margins Democrats scored in recent presidential contests.
Harris enjoys healthy margins in several Latino-heavy swing states like Arizona, where she leads among Latino voters by 29%, and Nevada, where she is up by 23%. The Democratic advantage with the bloc is even bigger in battleground Pennsylvania, where the Harris lead stands at 35% and Georgia, where she is ahead of Trump by 31%.
The poll marked a big boost in support for Harris compared to President Biden. He led Trump by a relatively paltry 18% margin in a similar survey conducted last November.
It bolsters the narrative that Harris has quickly consolidated support of the Democratic base and injected a major jolt of enthusiasm into the race since Biden suspended his campaign and endorsed his vice president in July.
Harris still has a ways to go with Latinos to match the benchmarks set by Democrats in recent presidential contests. Biden beat Trump 65% to 32% among Latinos in 2020, according to exit polls. Hillary Clinton did even a bit better against Trump four years earlier.
Trump has boasted that he will dramatically overperform expectations among Latinos, along with Black voters and other historically Democratic constituencies.
The poll showed a very wide gender gap, with Harris leading by 36% among Latina women and 19% with Latino men.
Harris is beating Trump by a relatively anemic 18% among young Latino voters under 30, but has a healthy 37% edge with those over 60.
The Latino electorate includes a disproportionately large number of new voters, with 23% saying 2024 would be their first presidential election and only 63% having voted in 2016 or earlier.
Although Latino voters lean Democratic, just 23% say they have been contacted by Team Blue this year, suggesting Harris’ campaign could see more gains as interest in the election heats up in the home stretch.
Like other voters, Latinos said the economy and rising cost of living are the biggest issues in the election.
On immigration, Latinos strongly support a path to legalization for undocumented immigrants. They overwhelmingly oppose restrictions on abortion rights by a 71%-21% margin.
One bright spot for Trump was in Florida, where Harris leads among Latinos by a much narrower 47%-42% margin.
The Latino electorate in the Sunshine State includes far more conservative-leaning voters with roots in Cuba than Southwest states, where Mexican Americans are the dominant Latino group, or the Northeast, where more Puerto Ricans live.
When asked to choose between the Democratic ticket of Harris and vice presidential nominee Tim Walz versus the GOP ticket of Trump and JD Vance, Harris’ advantage grows to 60%-to-30%, suggesting that the Republican No. 2 is dragging down Trump.
