Harris’ Place At Top Of Ticket Threw Wrench Into Trump’s Gains With Latino Voters

Registered Latino voters in seven key states shifted 14 points to the left since Democrats ditched President Joe Biden in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris as the presumptive nominee, according to a poll released Wednesday by Equis Research.

Among Hispanic registered voters living in Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, 56% favored Harris and 37% said they would vote for former President Donald Trump, according to the poll. A previous Equis poll conducted from May 16 to June 6 had found Biden leading Trump by a margin of 46% to 41%.

“Latino-Americans know Kamala Harris was the original Border Czar, the deciding vote that led to sky-rocketing inflation, and dangerously liberal,” Trump campaign senior advisor Danielle Alvarez told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “President Trump’s message to our community is simple and built on his winning record: If you want the return of the strongest economy in over 60 years, rising wages, quality jobs, strong borders, and safe neighborhoods, then vote for him.”

A June poll released by Equis found that 41% of Hispanic voters trusted Trump and the Republicans on immigration, compared to 38% who placed their faith in Biden and the Democrats.

Trump’s margin among swing state Latinos in Equis’ most recent poll is still well above the former president’s national benchmarks from the 2016 and 2020 elections. Trump captured just 28% of the Hispanic vote in 2016 and 32% in 2020, according to CNN exit polls.

“[Hispanics] don’t have a fully formed Democratic identity,” Equis co-founder Carlos Odio told Vox in 2021. “That vote was borrowed, to some extent. You have a segment of the vote that is as swingy as you get in the current moment.”

Equis’ most recent poll surveyed 1,242 Latino voters across the seven swing states between July 22 and Aug. 4, according to a memo released by the pollster. It had a margin of error of 3.7%.

A slate of New York Times/Siena College polls released on Aug. 10 found that Harris leads Trump by a margin of 50% to 46% among likely voters across Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. All three results fell within the respective margins of error for each poll.

Harris leads Trump by one point in the New York Times’ average of polls as of Wednesday. Trump was beating Biden by an average of 3.1 points in national polls before the president dropped out of the race, according to RealClear Polling.

The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.