New polling shows Vice President Kamala Harris losing ground among a key voting block, one that has supported Democrats by wide margins for the last four presidential elections.
According to an NBC News/Telemundo/CNBC Latino poll released Sunday, Harris is lagging behind her left-leaning predecessors among Latino-identifying voters, even as millions more join the nation’s second largest voting block and get set to cast their ballots in the 2024 general election.
“Support for Harris is at 54% among registered Latino voters, according to the poll, while Trump gets 40% and another 6% say they’re unsure or wouldn’t vote. The margin of error in the poll is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points,” the network found.
Harris’ numbers are actually better than those seen when it was President Joe Biden barreling toward the general election, but they still lag far behind the spread seen from previous election cycles. According to pollsters, Democratic candidates managed to grab a 39-point advantage among Latinos in 2012, a 50-point lead in 2016, and were ahead by a 29-point margin in 2020.
The same trend can be seen when voters are asked to consider who the would like to see in control of Congress, even though Democrats hold a 12-point advantage, that margin “represents a steady decline” since the 45-point difference seen in 2012, the 34-point lead in 2016, and the 21-point split seen in 2020, according to that survey.
“54% of Latino voters preferring a Democratic-controlled Congress, versus 42% who want Republicans in charge,” NBC wrote.
The root of the difference among a key voting demographic, according to pollsters, lies with Latino men under the age of 50 and who do not have college degrees. Those voters prefer Trump by about a dozen-point margin. On the other hand, Harris performs best among college educated Latino men and among Latina women with a college degree, where she’s up by 52 points and 24 points, respectively.
“Solid Democratic support from Hispanic women, or Latinas, has helped offset some of that erosion,” the network wrote.
This year an estimated 36.2 million Latinos are eligible to vote in the general election, according to Pew Research. That’s up from 32.3 million in 2020. Every year, Pew says, the Latino voting block grows by 1.4 million voters.
Pollsters also asked about better immigrant rights, securing the border, fighting crime, reproductive rights, the economy and the rising cost of living. Harris wins on abortion and immigrant rights by wide margins, and on crime by five points, but the poll showed that more Latino voters prefer Trump for securing the border, handling the economy, and tackling inflation.
“A majority of Latinos in the poll – a combined 54% – say the cost of living and the economy are their top issues,” pollsters wrote.
About one third of Latinos polled said they felt that immigration was a net negative for the nation, a nearly two-decade high for that sentiment among that demographic.
“Sixty-two percent of Latino voters believe immigration helps more than it hurts, versus 35% who think it hurts more than it helps. But that 35% saying immigration hurts more than it helps is the highest share of Latino voters saying this on a question dating back to 2006,” NBC found.
The poll was conducted from September 16 to the 23rd, and spoke with 1,000 registered Latino voters — half by cellphone, 10% via landline and the rest via the web. It carries a plus-minus 3.1-point margin of error.
That poll comes as other recent surveys show Harris holding the slightest within-the-margins lead in several key swing states.
According to a Fox News poll of nearly 800 likely voters, Harris is running even with former President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, at 49% each. According to the network, the race stood at exactly that same position in July, after Biden dropped out but before Harris officially became the party nominee.
“Her support has held steady among two other sources of strength: college graduates and urban voters,” Fox wrote.
Those results match a poll published by UMass Lowell’s Center for Public Opinion and YouGov late last week, which showed Harris up by two points.
“The presidential race remains very close in Pennsylvania with the coming weeks a crucial time for both campaigns. As can be expected in a highly competitive race with few undecided voters, get-out-the-vote strategies will become increasingly important to mobilize supporters and ensure they go to the polls on Election Day,” UMass Lowell Professor and Center for Public Opinion Associate Director Rodrigo Castro Cornejo said along with that poll.
A New York Times/Siena College poll of Michigan voters found the Vice President ahead by just a single point among likely voters, and the same survey showed her up by two points in Wisconsin. The Times described those races as “essentially tied.”
The UML/YouGov survey showed Harris up by five in Michigan, which falls just outside that poll’s 4.3-point margin of error.
“The Trump campaign has a negative favorability in Michigan that needs to be overcome if they want to remain competitive in the state,” Cornejo said.
