An election poll shows Latinos nationwide overwhelmingly voted for Biden and helped flip an important state blue.
The unprecedented support that President Trump received from Latino voters in Florida had many people buzzing on election night.
But a poll of 5,300 Latino voters across the nation — including California, Arizona, Georgia, Florida and Pennsylvania — revealed Latinos overwhelmingly supported former Vice President Joe Biden and Democratic congressional candidates in the election.
An estimated 70% of Latinos polled nationwide said they voted for Biden, compared with nearly 30% who said they supported Trump, according to the American Election Eve Poll. By comparison, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won 66% of Latino voters in 2016, while former President Barack Obama won 71% in 2012 and 67% in 2008, according to Pew Research.
In California, 75% of Latinos voted for Biden, compared with 22% who supported Trump, Tuesday’s poll showed.
Similarly, 70% of Latinos said they supported Democratic candidates for the House of Representatives, while nearly 30% said they voted for Republican candidates.
Latino voters became a focal point of the election Tuesday after Cubans and other Latin Americans in MiamiDade County helped the president secure the key state of Florida, surprising some Americans. In Arizona, activists said a historic Latino turnout helped flip the state blue for the first time in 24 years.
“The Latino vote proved critical,” said Clarissa Martinez de Castro, of UnidosUS, a nonprofit Latino advocacy organization based in Washington, D. C., during a press call Thursday. “It proved critical in different places to both candidates, and it was largely powered by the energy and yearslong work of the community.”
In the Bay Area, 78% of Latino voters said they were certain that they would vote in the election, according to a September poll by Latino Decisions. Only 21% of Bay Area Latinos said they believed the country was headed in the right direction.
Biden inched closer to victory Thursday, although votes were still being counted in Nevada, Georgia, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.
Trump won about 45% of the Latino vote in Florida, a pattern also seen in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, where the president took nearly half of the Latino vote in several border counties.
An estimated 38% of Florida Latinos surveyed in the American Election Eve Poll said they voted for Trump — the most out of any state, followed by 29% in Texas.
The data paint the picture of a voter bloc that is deeply complex and often misunderstood. The nation’s 61 million Latinos come from more than 20 nations, each with vastly different cultures. While some immigrated to the U. S. in recent years, others have been here for generations and carry differing viewpoints on key issues like immigration and racism. The same applies to different age groups, with younger, secondgeneration Latinos largely leaning left on issues like abortion. A 60yearold Honduran immigrant in California won’t necessarily vote the same as a 25yearold, fifthgeneration Latino born in North Carolina.
Voting experts said Latino support for Trump was owed, in part, to significant Republican campaigning efforts in south Florida that falsely portrayed Biden as a socialist. Cuban Americans have historically backed Republican candidates and largely identified as Republican in 2020, siding with Trump’s anticommunist rhetoric. In places like the Rio Grande, Democrats lagged in their campaigning efforts, they said.
“It might have something to do with the fact that ( Vice) President Biden was not a household name for most Latino households, unlike Secretary Clinton, and he wasn’t really in the position to campaign because of the COVID epidemic,” said Gary Segura, cofounder of Latino Decisions, the political opinion research firm that conducted the poll. “He did not really invest money he did not have in Latino communities until after July 1.”
The results sparked an impassioned conversation on social media, with many expressing shock at the support that Trump received from Latinos, who are generally — and often mistakenly — perceived as largely leftleaning Democrats.
But many journalists, community members and voters said it was a reminder that Latino voters have spanned the political spectrum for decades. They have varying viewpoints based on many socioeconomic factors, including age and place of birth, immigration status, education, religion and economic status.
Lorella Praeli, copresident of the nonprofit Community Change Action, said it showed that Latino voters are often ignored, misunderstood and taken for granted.
“Every four years, it is almost as if we are just discovering the Latinx electorate,” Praeli said in a press call Thursday, calling it “offensive.”
“There are no shortcuts to organizing Latinx voters. You have to do the work. You have to invest early and heavily. You can’t overgeneralize our community.”
The poll was part of a larger sampling of 15,200 Black, Asian, Latino and American Indian voters who were surveyed from Oct. 23 to Nov. 2. The survey was conducted by Latino Decisions, the African American Research Collaborative and Asian American Decisions.
An estimated 89% of Black voters across the U. S. said they voted for Biden, compared with 68% of Asians and Pacific Islanders, 60% of American Indians and 41% of white people.
Praeli urged people to look beyond MiamiDade to study the impact of Latino voters in this election.
“I do think we’re missing the bigger story here,” she said. “It’s so important to expand our understanding of the Latino electorate and what has really happened this year. ... We’re going to miss out on a critical year, a critical election cycle because we are distracted by what happened in MiamiDade.”
Survey participants listed the coronavirus pandemic as the most pressing issue in America. Roughly 70% said they felt Trump ignored the early warning signs of the pandemic, which led to millions of cases and deaths. Nearly 70% said they strongly support a national mandate to wear masks in public.