Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, has dramatically increased her lead among Hispanic voters over former President Donald Trump.
A survey published by YouGov/The Economist A poll on Wednesday found that 56 percent of registered Hispanic voters prefer Harris, while 34 percent prefer Trump, the Republican presidential nominee. The remaining 10 percent are 4 percent undecided voters, 4 percent who said they would not vote and 2 percent who said they would vote for another candidate.
In a version of the poll conducted from July 21 — the day President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris — through July 23, Harris led Trump among Hispanic voters by a much narrower margin of 44 percent to 38 percent. Support for the Democrat has increased in nearly every weekly edition of the poll since then, peaking with this week’s poll.
But the Democratic surge may be more a result of Hispanic enthusiasm for Harris than a significant drop in support for Trump. While Hispanics’ share of Trump’s vote this week is the lowest at 34 percent, it has never fallen below that mark and has lost four percentage points since Harris entered the race.
The new poll, conducted between August 25 and 27, has a margin of error of 3.2 percent, compared with 3.1 and 3.3 percent for the older polls.
Newsweek reached out to Trump and Harris’ campaign teams via email on Wednesday, requesting comment.
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Support from Hispanic or Latino voters – a category that includes all people of Latin American ethnic descent, including those from non-Spanish-speaking areas – could be crucial to Harris’s victory in the White House in November.
In swing states with large Latino populations, such as Arizona and Nevada, an advantage could prove decisive. A poll released by Univision earlier this month found the Democratic candidate with a 25 percentage point lead over Trump among Latino voters in Arizona, a state Biden won by fewer than 11,000 votes in 2020.
The number of Latinos eligible to vote in the United States has increased by nine million over the past 18 years, faster than any other demographic. This demographic now represents about 13.8 percent of the voting population, although the proportion is significantly higher in some states.
“40 percent of the increase in the voting population nationally is Latinos, so they will count, especially in places like Nevada and Arizona,” said demographer William Frey of the Brookings Institute earlier Newsweek.
Even as support for Harris grows among Latinos and Hispanics, the latest YouGov/The Economist According to polls, the vice president is only two percent ahead of Trump among all voters.
An average of recent national polls compiled by FiveThirtyEight showed Harris with a 3.4 percent lead over Trump as of Wednesday. She also has a small lead on average in at least five swing states, including a tiny 0.8 percent lead in Arizona and Nevada.
