Poll: Trump will struggle to win over Hispanics
Dems expected to easily win their vote
Republican front-runner Donald Trump boasted about his performance among Hispanic voters in Nevada this week, but a new poll finds that he wouldn’t fare nearly as well with those voters come November.
Entrance polling from Nevada showed that Trump won 45% of Hispanics who voted in the Republican caucuses Tuesday, prompting the real estate mogul to exclaim, “You know what I’m really happy about? No. 1 with Hispanics.”
But nationwide, 81% of Hispanics have an unfavorable view of the businessman, and only 16% would vote for him in matchups with Democratic candidates, according to a Washington Post/ Univision poll released Wednesday night.
The poll finds that his Republican opponents, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, would fare far better with the ever-growing Hispanic electorate.
“The GOP has a Latino electorate problem, and that problem is called Donald Trump,” said Fernand Amandi of Bendixen & Amandi International, a Miamibased polling firm that helped conduct the survey.
The poll indicates that Democrats should easily win the Hispanic vote in November, as they have for decades. Republican strategists are trying to get at least 40% of the Hispanic vote — last reached by President George W. Bush in 2004 — to give their candidate a good chance at winning the general election.
According to the poll, Rubio comes the closest to reaching that figure, picking up 33% of Hispanics in a hypothetical race against Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders and 31% against Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. Cruz would win 28% of the Hispanic vote in a matchup against Sanders and 27% against Clinton. Among other findings:
Sanders’ appeal with young voters carries over into the Hispanic vote. About 60% of all Hispanic voters have a favorable view of Sanders; 73% of Hispanics ages 18 to 34 hold that view.
Clinton fares better with Hispanic voters overall. Sixty-seven percent of them have a favorable opinion of the former secretary of State.
Hispanics ranked immigration as the second-most-important issue after the economy.