Even as Latino voters played a meaningful role in tipping
the Senate and the presidency to the Democrats last year, former president
Donald Trump succeeded in peeling away significant amounts of Latino support,
and not just in conservative-leaning geographic areas, according to a
post-mortem analysis of the election that was released Friday.
اضافة اعلان
Conducted by the Democratically aligned research firm Equis
Labs, the report found that certain demographics within the Latino electorate
had proved increasingly willing to embrace Trump as the 2020 campaign went on,
including conservative Latinas and those with a relatively low level of
political engagement.
Using data from Equis Labs’ polls in a number of swing
states, as well as focus groups, the study found that within those groups,
there was a shift towards Trump across the country, not solely in areas like
Miami or the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, where the growth in Trump’s Latino
support has been reported.
Ultimately, Trump outperformed his 2016 showing among Latino
voters, earning the support of about 1 in 3 nationwide, even as President Joe
Biden won those voters by a roughly 2-1 margin overall, according to exit
polls.
All told, close to 17 million Latino voters turned out in
the general election, according to a separate analysis published in January by
the UCLA Latino Policy & Politics Initiative. That represented an uptick of
more than 30 percent from 2016.
With the coronavirus pandemic and the related economic
downturn taking center stage on the campaign trail, Equis Labs found that many
Latino voters — particularly conservatives — had focused more heavily on
economic issues than they had four years earlier. This helped Trump by putting
the spotlight on an issue seen as one of his strong suits and by drawing
attention away from his anti-immigrant language.
Chuck Coughlin, a Republican pollster in Arizona, said he
was unsurprised by the results of the report. He said the Trump campaign’s
messaging on economic and social issues had resonated for many Latino voters.
“They’re pro-business. They’re pro-gun. They don’t like higher taxes. They
don’t trust the government,” he said. “It’s the same constituency that you see
among Anglo Trump voters.”
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