Yes, There Is PLENTY of Evidence That Trump Is Tanking With Latino Voters

Sep 20, 2016
2:06 PM
(Photos by Gage Skidmore)

(Photos by Gage Skidmore)

Let’s step back for a second and say that The Hill’s Niall Stanage is not telling you everything you need to know about Donald Trump and Latino voters in a clickbaity story called “Trump is doing better with Hispanics than you think.”

At one point Stanage boldly writes this:

But as of right now, there is not much evidence to suggest that Trump is faring any worse among Hispanics than did Romney, who at one point argued that illegal immigrants in the United States could be persuaded to “self-­deport.”

Seriously? As with any political story that tries to inform but in the end just misleads, Stanage conveniently didn’t include some polls that would fly in the face of his thesis.

Exhibit 1: We guess that Stanage didn’t catch the latest NALEO/Telemundo/Latino Decisions poll that was released on Monday, September 19? Here is what that poll says: Clinton 71% Trump 18%. (6% are undecided and 5% are choosing another candidate.) We will repeat it for Stanage: Clinton 71% Trump 18%. Romney was at 27% with Latino voters in 2012. Last time we checked, 18% is nowhere near close to 27%. (FYI, Latino Decisions’ co-founders do some polling work for the Clinton campaign but they were not involved in this poll.)

Exhibit 2: Florida International University’s New Latino Voice weekly tracking poll has it as (wait for it): Clinton 75.2%, Other 13.6% and Trump 11.2%. Yes, in the poll, Other is doing better than Trump.

Exhibit 3: America’s Voice and Latino Decisions from late August: Clinton 70% Trump 19%. Once again, 19% is no way near close to 27%.

Exhibit 4: Stanage does not let you know in his story that the Univision swing states poll he was referring to also included Gary Johnson and Jill Stein. So you are literally comparing apples and oranges between 2012 and 2016. Thanks for not mentioning that, Mr. Stanage. That’s kind of an important detail to overlook.

Exhibit 5: In the middle of August, Fox News Latino had it as Clinton 66% Trump 20%. 20%. That is not 27% or better than Romney.

One more thing: that Marist poll Stanage is using to prove his case that Trump is killing it with Latinos (30 percent!)? It is very likely that the sampling is small when it comes to Latinos. For example, for the Nevada portion of the poll, only 627 likely voters were surveyed. That is ALL voters and not just Latino voters. So is this a case that the Marist poll asked 100 Latinos again? Actually, if you look at the actual numbers, this is how many Latinos were surveyed for this poll: 240 Latino adults. Of those 240 Latino adults, 183 were registered Latino voters and of those 183 registered voters, 107 were likely Latino voters.

107 likely Latino voters.

Yes, do we think Hillary Clinton is still having some problems with Latinos? No doubt. But Stanage’s suggestion that Trump is doing better than Romney with Latino voters nationally is laughable. On another note, didn’t Romney lose in 2012 anyway?