Kamala Harris’ Lead with Latinos is Shrinking

Vice President Kamala Harris’ lead among Hispanic voters is lower than that achieved by Joe Biden in 2020, according to analysis by Newsweek.
Newsweek looked at the national polls since September 16 that provide a breakdown of voting intention based on race and found that on average, Harris is polling at 56 percent among Hispanic voters, down from Biden’s 59 percent four years ago.
Meanwhile, Trump is polling at 38 points, the same level of support that he received in 2020.
Democrats have been warning about signs of Latino voters turning toward the GOP for years. In 2020, Biden won among Hispanics by a smaller margin than in 2016 when Hillary Clinton beat Trump among Hispanics by 38 points, with 66 percent to his 28 percent, according to the Pew Research Center.
And polling shows that margins are continuing to decline among Hispanic voters, with Harris on average 18 points ahead of Trump, according to Newsweek analysis, down from 21 points in 2020 and 38 points in 2016, with individual polls indicating that Trump’s support among Hispanic voters is growing.
A recent national NBC News/Telemundo/CNBC poll conducted from September 16 and 23 found that 54 percent of registered Latino voters support Harris compared to 40 percent who would vote for Trump. Six percent said they were unsure or wouldn’t vote. The poll also found that Latino voters rank Trump better on the economy, inflation and cost of living. Cost of living was ranked the top issue for Latino voters, the survey found.
The poll surveyed 1,000 registered Latino voters and the margin of error for this sample was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Meanwhile, the most recent Quinnipiac University poll, conducted between September 19 and 22, suggested Trump could see a substantial increase in Hispanic support, with 52 percent of likely Latino voters supporting Harris compared to 44 percent who support Trump. The poll surveyed 1,728 likely voters and had a margin of error of +/- 3.2 percentage points.
The polls are a worrying sign for Harris, who has made a concerted effort to appeal to Latino voters.
“Polls show that Latino communities care primarily about the same things that all other Americans do—jobs, health care access, affordability and the rising cost of living. They may see Trump as stronger in some of those areas,” UnidosUS Action Fund Executive Director Rafael Collazo told Newsweek.
“That being said, disinformation campaigns have played a huge role in this shift since 2016. The weaponizing of digital platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook, YouTube, and others, combined with a lack of reliable information that crosses cultural boundaries and linguistic barriers, has left an enormous void where these disinformation campaigns have been targeted toward Latino communities.”
Leading up to the 2020 election, Facebook ads targeting Latino and Asian American voters described Joe Biden as a communist. Meanwhile, an ad from the Trump campaign that aired in Spanish on Miami-area radio station Mix 98.3 FM painted Democrats as “puppets of the radical left, a gang that prefers anarchy and chaos.”
“You came to this country to live a calm and safe life, a prosperous life,” the speaker said. “Joe Biden is kneeling in front of the violence and putting the future of you and your family in danger.”
“This kind of disinformation is targeted at the Latino community who don’t speak English,” Tamoa Calzadilla, the editor-in-chief of Factchequado, a digital fact-checking outlet focusing on disinformation in Spanish in the United States, told NiemanLab in March. “We understand that Spanish speakers in the United States are more vulnerable than others because they do not have the same sources [as English speakers] to inform themselves.”
Kathy Whitlock, Vice President of Strategy and Insight at TelevisaUnivison, told Newsweek that in order to solve this problem, both candidates need to convey their message in Spanish.
“Over 50 percent of Hispanics still don’t have the information they need about candidates, parties and their positions on the issues that matter most in order to make an informed voting decision. Both campaigns need to do what they can to convey their positions—and most importantly they need to convey their position in Spanish, the language of the heart and the head for Latino voters,” she said.
Neither candidate speaks Spanish. However, since 2020, the Democrats have attempted to make their campaigns more accessible to Hispanic voters, with the Biden campaign running Spanish-language ads early on in the election cycle.
“But it really wasn’t moving the numbers with Latinos, and that was the problem,” Chuck Rocha, a national Democratic strategist, told the Houston Chronicle in August. Surveys showed that Biden was polling lower among Latinos than any other modern Democratic presidential candidate.
In response, the Harris campaign has ramped up efforts to engage Latino voters, including launching a WhatsApp channel to send daily voice memos, videos, and messages from surrogates and supporters. This platform also serves to counter misinformation and disinformation, according to campaign officials. More than half the U.S. Hispanic population is estimated to regularly use WhatsApp.
And while Harris may still be polling lower than her predecessors among Hispanics, Collazo is optimistic that she will recapture the support Biden lost.
“Harris appears to have gained back some of the support that Biden may have lost. Harris’s polling numbers show improvements over Biden’s recent struggles with Latino voters. A Reuters/Ipsos poll from late August indicated Harris is leading Trump among Hispanics by a wider margin than Biden did during his final months in the race​​. Harris’s focus on issues important to Latino voters, such as economic recovery, immigration, and health care, is likely contributing to this regained support,” he said.
“Her visibility and commitment to Latino communities, highlighted through visits to battleground states like Pennsylvania and Nevada, further position her as a candidate reconnecting with the base Biden had struggled with before suspending his campaign,” Collazo added.
Nonetheless, despite polls indicating that Harris may be improving on Biden’s performance with Hispanic voters, her real challenge lies in securing enough Latino support in key swing states to win the Electoral College.
This is particularly pertinent in the swing states with high numbers of Latino voters, including Arizona, where Hispanics make up 25 percent of the electorate, and Nevada, where Hispanics make up 20 percent of the voting population. As well as in Pennsylvania and Georgia, where Hispanics make up 5 percent of the voting population in each state.
In 2020, around 33 percent of Latino voters voted for Trump in Arizona, up from 30 percent in 2016, according to the Americas Society/Council of the Americas. Some 63 percent voted for Biden.
Meanwhile, in Nevada, 61 percent of Latino voters voted for Biden in 2020, while 35 percent voted for Trump. In Pennsylvania, 69 percent voted for Biden, while 27 percent supported Trump.
In all 3 states, polls have indicated that support for the Democrats is decreasing, while support for the Republicans is increasing.
For example, the most recent New York Times/Siena College poll, conducted between September 17 and 21, showed that Trump had support from 41 percent of Hispanic voters in Arizona, compared to the vice president’s 49 percent.
Meanwhile, a Marist poll conducted between September 19 and 24 showed Donald Trump with a narrow 1-point lead over Harris among likely voters in Arizona, holding 50 percent to her 49 percent.
And in Nevada, an AtlasIntel poll from September 20 to 25 showed that Harris was polling at 54 percent among Hispanic voters, while Trump was polling at 41 percent. The AtlasIntel poll showed a similar trend in Pennsylvania, with 51 percent choosing Harris, while 39 percent chose Trump.
However, some polls from Georgia have shown that Trump’s vote share among Hispanics has largely stayed at around the 41 percent mark he gained in 2020. For example, an ActiVote poll from September 10 showed 40 percent of Hispanic voters in Georgia plan to vote for Trump, while 58 percent said the same about the Democrat.
A poll conducted by TelevisaUnivision Consumer Strategy & Insights, in collaboration with Opiniones Latinas between September 17 and 22 showed that overall, 55 percent of Hispanic voters across the 7 swing states support Harris, while 39 percent support Trump. The poll surveyed 2,200 Hispanic voters and had a margin of error of +/-2.1 percent.
“Hispanic voters are positioned to be a decisive factor in the 2024 election, particularly in key battleground states such as Arizona, Nevada, and Pennsylvania,” Collazo told Newsweek. “Both Trump and Harris need to win a substantial share of Hispanic voters to succeed, particularly in swing states where the Latino electorate makes up a significant portion of the voting population. While neither needs to win the majority of Latino voters outright to win the election, losing too much ground with this key demographic could prove decisive,” Collazo added.
“As their population grows and their voter participation increases, Latinos will likely play a critical role in determining which candidate wins the presidency, especially in close races within the Electoral College system.”
Newsweek has contacted the Harris and Trump campaigns for comment via email.