US: Kamala Harris’ lead is smaller than the lead enjoyed by Joe Biden in 2020

US: Analysis by Newsweek shows that the advantage of Vice President Kamala Harris among Hispanic voters is less than that obtained by Joe Biden in 2020.

Based on racial breakdown of voting intention determined by Newsweek’s analysis of national surveys taken since September 16, Harris is averaging 56 percent among Hispanic voters, down from Biden’s 59 percent four years ago.

Trump is pollering at 38 percent, the same degree of support he had in 2020.

For years, Democrats have been cautioning about signals of Latino voters gravitating toward the GOP. Based on Pew Research Center data, Biden won among Hispanics by a lesser margin than in 2016 when Hillary Clinton defeated Trump among Hispanics by 38 points, with 66 percent to his 28 percent.

With Harris on average 18 points ahead of Trump, Newsweek analysis indicates that margins are still declining among Hispanic voters. From 21 points in 2020 and 38 points in 2016, individual polls show that Trump’s support among Hispanic voters is rising.

54% of registered Latino voters prefer Harris compared to 40% who would vote for Trump according to a recent national NBC News/Telemundo/CNBC survey taken between September 16 and 23. Six percent said they were undecided or would not vote. On the economy, inflation, and cost of living, Latino voters likewise rated Trump higher. According to the poll, Latino voters rated their cost of living as their main concern.

One thousand registered Latino voters were polled, and the margin of error for this sample was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

With 52 percent of potential Latino voters backing Harris compared to 44 percent who favor Trump, the most recent Quinnipiac University poll, taken between September 19 and 22, indicated Trump would experience a significant rise in Hispanic support. Comprising 1,728 potential voters, the poll had a margin of error of +/- 3.2 percentage points.

For Harris, who has tried especially to appeal to Latino voters, the polls are a concerning indicator.

“Polls reveal that Latino groups mostly concern about the same issues that all other Americans do: employment, health care accessibility, affordability and the growing expense of living. In some of those locations, Trump may seem more powerful to them,” UnidosUS Action Fund Executive Director Rafael Collazo told Newsweek.

“That being said, since 2016 this change has been greatly influenced by misinformation tactics. Combining the weaponizing of digital platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook, YouTube, and others with a lack of trustworthy information that bridges cultural borders and language obstacles has created a great hole where these misinformation efforts have been aimed targeting Latino communities.”

Facebook advertising aimed at Latino and Asian American voters labeled Joe Biden as a communist leading up the 2020 contest. Concurrently, a Trump campaign advertisement in Spanish on Miami-area radio station Mix 98.3 FM presented Democrats as “puppets of the radical left, a gang that prefers anarchy and chaos.”

The speaker remarked, “you came to this country to live a calm and safe life, a prosperous life.” “Joe Biden is kneeling in front of the violence and exposing the future of you and your family in danger.”

“This kind of disinformation is aimed at the Latino community who don’t speak English,” Tamoa Calzadilla, editor-in-chief of Factchequado, a digital fact-checking tool concentrating on disinformation in Spanish in the United States, told NiemanLab in March. “We know that since they do not have the same sources [as English speakers] to guide themselves], Spanish speakers in the United States are more vulnerable than others.”

Vice President of Strategy and Insight at TelevisaUnivision Kathy Whitlock said Newsweek that both candidates must communicate their message in Spanish if they want to address this issue.

“Over half of Hispanics still lack the knowledge required about candidates, parties, and their stances on the subjects most important to them so they may vote with wisdom. Both campaigns must present their viewpoints—and most crucially, they must present their positions in Spanish, the language of the heart and the mind for Latino voters,” she added.

Neither candidate uses Spanish. But since 2020, the Democrats have tried to make their campaigns more appealing to Hispanic voters; the Biden campaign runs early on in the election cycle Spanish-language advertising.

“But it really wasn’t moving the numbers with Latinos, and that was the problem,” national Democratic strategist Chuck Rocha said to the Houston Chronicle in August. Biden was polling worse among Latinos than any previous contemporary Democratic presidential contender according to polls.

The Harris campaign has responded by intensifying efforts to include Latino voters, including starting a WhatsApp channel to provide daily voice memos, videos, and messages from supporters and surrogates. Campaign leaders said this tool also helps to combat false information and deception. It is expected that over half of the Hispanic Americans routinely use WhatsApp.

And while Harris may still be polling worse than her predecessors among Hispanics, Collazo is hopeful she can recover the support Biden lost.

“Harris seems to have replaced some of the support Biden could have lost. Harris’s polling results suggest gains over Biden’s most recent difficulties with Latino voters. Late August’s Reuters/Ipsos survey revealed Harris is leading Trump among Hispanics by a larger margin than Biden did during his last months in the contest. Harris’s emphasis on topics crucial to Latino voters—such as economic recovery, immigration, and health care—is probably helping to explain this increased support.

Collazo 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.”

Still, surveys showing Harris could be doing better than Biden’s performance with Hispanic voters highlight her actual difficulty obtaining sufficient Latino support in crucial swing states to win the Electoral College.

This is especially relevant in the swing states such Arizona, where Hispanics account for 25 percent of the voters, and Nevada, where Hispanics account for 20 percent of the voting population. Along with in Pennsylvania and Georgia, where five percent of each state’s voting population is Hispanic.

The Americas Society/Council of the Americas estimates that around 33 percent of Latino voters in Arizona chose Trump in 2020, compared to 30 percent in 2016. Of these, 63% supported Biden.

In Nevada, meantime, 61% of Latino voters cast their ballots for Biden in 2020 and 35% for Trump. Of Pennsylvanian voters, 69 percent chose Biden and 27 percent backed Trump.

Polls taken in all three states show that support for the Republicans is rising while that of the Democrats is declining.

For instance, compared to the vice president’s 49 percent, the most recent New York Times/Siena College survey, taken between September 17 and 21, revealed that 41 percent of Hispanic voters in Arizona approved of Trump.

A Marist survey taken between September 19 and 24 revealed Donald Trump with a meager 1-point edge over Harris among potential Arizona voters, holding 50 percent to her 49 percent.

And in Nevada, an AtlasIntel survey conducted between September 20 and 25 revealed that while Trump was scoring at 41 percent, Harris was polling at 54 percent among Hispanic voters. With 51 percent of Pennsylvanian respondents selecting Harris and 39 percent selecting Trump, the AtlasIntel survey revealed a similar pattern in Pennsylvania.

Nonetheless, certain surveys conducted in Georgia have shown that Trump’s vote share among Hispanics has mostly held at around the 41 percent rate he obtained in 2020. For instance, a September 10 ActiVote survey revealed that forty percent of Hispanic voters in Georgia want to support Trump, while fifty-eight percent said the same of the Democrat.

In partnership with Opiniones Latinas between September 17 and 22, TelevisaUnivision Consumer Strategy & Insights conducted a study revealing generally, 55 percent of Hispanic voters throughout the 7 swing states favor Harris, while 39 percent back Trump. With a margin of error of +/-2.1 percent, the poll questioned 2,200 Hispanic voters.

“Hispanic voters are positioned to be a decisive factor in the 2024 election, particularly in major battleground states such Arizona, Nevada, and Pennsylvania,” Collazo told Newsweek. “To succeed, both Trump and Harris must attract a sizable fraction of Hispanic voters—especially in swing states where the Latino voting population is somewhat large. Although neither has to outright win the majority of Latino votes to win the election, losing too much ground with this important group might be crucial.” Collazo said.

“As their population grows and their voter participation increases, Latinos will probably play a critical role in determining which candidate wins the presidency, especially in close races inside the Electoral College system.”