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When President Donald Trump tweeted on January 20 that he had reached 50 percent approval Among Americans of Hispanic origin, most impartial observers reacted with skepticism or even disbelief. Trump, after all, is still the same man who announced his candidacy by accusing Mexico of sending "rapists" across the border, the same man who ordered that refugee children be separated from their parents , the same man who built a wall to avoid migrants at the center of his presidency. Yet here he was singing like a characteristic bravado: "Wow, I just heard that the number of my polls with Hispanics has increased by 19%, to 50%. That's because they know the border problem better than anyone else and that they want security, which can only be achieved with a wall. "
So, even data investigators, Trump, the Marist Institute for Public Polls for NPR and PBS NewsHour, have warned of the high margin of error of this subset and the possibility of An oversample of Republicans, many left. quickly dismissed as an anomaly.
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A month later, however, Trump plays aggressively for Hispanic-American votes in Florida and beyond. At the same time, new polls suggest that Marists might be on something – and that Democrats should be truly worried that Hispanic voters could help re-elect Trump and keep the US Senate under Republican control. If this is the case, it will be a cosmic turning point: a party that has cast its future on the belief that the demographic situation of America is radically changing in its favor could be lost to a man whose politics fear should to drive precisely these voters in the arms of the waiting of the democrats.
In theory, the optimistic predictions that once gave rise to such striking liberal books as "The Emerging Democratic Majority" turn out to be true: 2020 will be the first American election in which Hispanics are the largest racial minority or ethnic of the electorate the Pew research center. Pew estimates that 32 million Hispanics will have the right to vote, two million more than black voters and over 13 percent of voters. Hispanics account for at least 11% of the national vote, as was the case in 2016 and 2018.
Many expected Hispanics to vote overwhelmingly against Trump in 2016. A Latino Decisions poll just before the elections found Trump with the support of just 18 percent of Hispanics. But the actual figure was 28%, which, given Trump's inflammatory rhetoric about immigrants, revealed that some analysts and experts have refused to believe polls out of the polls until new studies confirm it. It was basically as good as Mitt Romney, as the 2012 Republican candidate, had done with the Hispanics – and that was enough to help Trump win the Electoral College victory.
If Clinton had improved his share of the Hispanic vote by just three percentage points in Florida (from 62% to 65% of Hispanic votes) and Michigan (from 59% to 62%), she would have won both Votes of the constituency. That would have been enough to make her president. Slightly larger increases – not to mention the 88% to 8% margin of Democrats among African Americans – could have also added Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to the blue column.
Now, here's the brutal truth for the Democrats: If Hispanic Americans show unprecedented approval of Mr. Trump, he may be on the verge of equaling or exceeding the 40% that George W. Bush won on his reelection in 2004. If the Hispanic vote is up by 12 percentage points from 2016, it should allow Democrats from Florida, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina to "win". register on behalf of Democrats, who should then sweep Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin 270 votes from the constituency. At the same time, this 12-point change would give Trump the means to win victories in Colorado and Nevada, states where Hispanic voters accounted for more than 10% of the electorate and where Clinton had won by five points percentage or less in 2016.
And if the democratic way to the presidency seems difficult without overwhelming support from Hispanics, Senate control seems almost impossible. Any realistic scenario to get the three seats needed – four if Trump retains the presidency – forces Democrats to defeat incumbent President Cory Gardner in Colorado and Martha McSally in Arizona. Both have a Hispanic electorate above average. Gardner won his seat in 2014 by dividing the Hispanic vote equally. McSally, who has been named to succeed John McCain, has narrowly lost his run in 2018 against Kyrsten Sinema by winning only 30% of Hispanics. Any improvement among Hispanics among Republicans – or even just a lack of enthusiasm to vote against Trump – could easily send Gardner and McSally back to the Senate and leave Democrats in the minority.
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Let's take a closer look at the numbers.
A new survey by Morning Consult, in partnership with Politico, revealed that Trump's approval had rebounded to 45%, with Hispanics' approval having increased significantly – to 42%, after hitting 22% on 21 January. This result, like the first Marist figure, suffers from a high margin of error for the ethnic subset. A more conservative moving average estimates this figure at about 35% and increases.
Other polls also show that Trump in the mid-1930s had Hispanics. A new Economist / YouGov survey reveals a 32% approval rate among Hispanics. another from The Hill and HarrisX reaches 35%. In mid-January, Reuters / Ipsos got a 36% approval rate among Hispanics, its highest level since the 2016 election.
That's about where Trump's Hispanic endorsement has spent most of 2018, according to previous Morning Consult polls, but about 10 points above Reuters / Ipsos and Gallup polls. throughout the year. According to polls, that Hispanics react to Trump as president, they are more like Americans – about 45% of them approve Trump – than African-Americans, whose approval remains of the order of 10% .
This does not necessarily translate into votes, warns Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Surveys. Despite this 50% approval rate, his survey reveals that only 27% of Hispanics said they were considering voting for Trump in 2020, and that 58% voted definitively against him. Nevertheless, a definitive percentage of 27%, if it is accurate, already substantially corresponds to the percentage of Hispanic voters who chose Trump in 2016 (28%), or Mitt Romney to Barack Obama in 2012 (27% ) or Republicans at the mid-session of Congress 2018 (29%).
There seems to be room for growth. Morning Consult polls showed that Hispanic approval of Trump was greater than or equal to 40% for most of his first year, perhaps in a grace period, in which he could potentially return.
And remember: 2016 pollsters thought Trump would only get 18% of the Hispanic vote; he actually got 28%. If, for some reason, the polls still underestimate his appeal to Hispanics with a similar margin, he could be about to turn 40 – and be re-elected.
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So why could Trump suddenly break into Hispanic voters?
It is easy to assume that all Hispanic Americans must hate and disapprove of the president who mocks and denigrates immigrants who cross the southern border. But that's not the reality. It is a large and diverse population that does not act as a monolith.
Overall, Hispanic Americans are becoming politically more and more similar to non – Hispanic white Americans. According to data from the Pew Research Center, two-thirds of the Hispanic electorate were born in America and are much more likely to approve Trump than naturalized immigrants. They remain more democratic than non-Hispanic white voters, in part because many of them are young adults and share the progressive views of their generation.
But, as recently noted political analysis site FiveThirtyEight, Hispanic Democrats are far less liberal than other party members. Hispanics make up about 12% of people who call themselves Democrats or who tend to be thin. but they are 22% of Democrats who describe themselves as moderate or conservative. Hispanics, about half of whom are Catholic (and one-quarter are former Catholics), retain a conservative stance on social issues, including abortion.
After Trump's mid-term misses trying to rally the Republican base by denouncing immigrants, it is also proven that the 2020 handbook will return to the more tried-and-true method of qualifying far-left Democrats. He and other influential Republicans are increasingly criticizing Democrats over abortion, taxes and "socialist" positions on health care and climate change. He also launched a targeted appeal to Cuban-Americans in Florida, vocally supporting the overthrow of Nicolas Maduro, the socialist leader who took power in Venezuela. There is good reason to believe that these efforts will be effective for Hispanic voters – or at least, effective enough.
The Democratic Party certainly did not impress them. The Hispanic endorsement of congressional Democrats, as well as Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer individually, is generally mediocre. There are few if any elected Hispanic Democrats who are national names. After Clinton missed the opportunity to place a Latino on the national market in 2016, the presidential group of 2020 has more than one Hispanic in the mix: Julian Castro, who was eclipsed by a White, Texan, Beto O'Rourke.
Meanwhile, the Democrats' hope of finding an agreement to protect the "Dreamers" who came to the United States in childhood, but remained in legal limbo for years, came to nothing. Immigration reform and labor issues have been relegated to the Democratic-controlled House in the face of climate change, health care and gun control, as was the case last year. once the Democrats took control of the House in 2009.
And most importantly, things are pretty good for most Hispanic Americans. Trump is right to say that they have experienced a record unemployment rate, despite a slight rise early this year. And, despite all Trump's rhetoric and the real fear it created, little has changed for most Hispanic families in the country. The deportations are a bit behind the peaks of the Obama administration, while the arrests of immigrants are on the rise.
The good economy may be more Obama's than Trump's, but whatever, it's a powerful incentive to keep the current political leadership in place.
None of this suggests that Hispanics are entering a long history of love with Trump. But this means that the prospective Democratic candidate simply can not assume that Hispanic voters will go to the polls to prevent his second term. On the contrary, the challenge for the party seems more difficult than in 2016 – when it cost them the White House.
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