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As the Biden re-election campaign’s existential crisis deepens, strategically leaked internal polling makes the case that whatever problems the incumbent might have, Hispanics in battleground states like him better than former President Donald Trump.
Apparently that’s true even if respondents don’t know what President Biden stands for — a full 30% of swing-state Hispanics polled say “they are not informed about the campaign.”
The July 6 survey from the Biden-connected BSP Research purports to show that while the campaign has “much work to do to improve our standing with Latino voters,” the “Latino vote remains stable and gives majority support to President Biden.”
This poll, restricted to swing states, is markedly more favorable to Biden than other recent surveys.
A New York Times/Siena College survey conducted between June 28 and July 2, for example, shows a statistical tie (47% for Biden, 46% for Trump) among Hispanic likely voters nationwide.
With registered voters, Trump leads 50% to 41%.
Even before the debate, surveys suggested Hispanic voters in battleground states were leaning toward Trump on the issues.
A June Equis poll showed that among 3,569 registered voters in 11 states, Trump inspired more confidence than Biden on the hot-button issue of immigration, leading the current prez 41% to 38%.
Despite these numbers to the contrary, Biden’s pollsters say the president can prevail with this demographic, even with irreconcilable concerns about the president’s age and persistent pressures from inflation.
“Biden is currently registering a net advantage of +13 among all Latino registered voters in a six-candidate match-up, and a larger advantage of +17 among Latino likely voters.
In a two-candidate match-up Biden leads Trump 53% to 36% (+17) and among likely voters the lead is 58% to 38% (+20),” BSP Research asserts.
The Biden team argues Hispanics who dislike both candidates — so-called “double haters” — will hold their noses and vote for the incumbent since “Biden still wins the vote 41% to 18% among Latinos and continues to lead among Latino independents.”
And the pollsters maintain 81% of those not backing Trump now say there’s “no chance” they will change their minds.
“Latinos voiced strong opposition to his alignment with corporations and billionaires, his perceived affiliation with white supremacists and groups who are racist against Latinos and immigrants, his role in January 6th, and his proposals for sweeping immigration raids targeting long-term immigrants in America,” BSP claims.
“In each instance, close to 70% of battleground Latino voters said they had grave concerns over this aspect of Trump’s 2024 campaign.”
While “Biden still has considerable work to do, and Latino voters say they are not hearing enough from the Biden campaign,” the pollsters claim that when “they do hear our contrast messaging, it is very effective and moves people in our direction.”
Trump’s campaign is actually being more aggressive in making its case to Hispanics according to some measures, such as its own Spanish-language contrast ad that has been on Univision during the Copa America soccer tournament, with national airing and local buys in Phoenix, Tucson, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Reno, Raleigh and Philadelphia.
Biden got roughly ⅔ of the Hispanic vote in 2020, per exit polling.
But four years later, it looks like Trump will get a bigger piece of the pie.
If the Republicans are able to capitalize with the more than 36 million Latino voters in play, it will change the electoral landscape for this election — and beyond.