Trump uses Telemundo website poll to claim 'Hispanic population' support
National polling weeks before Election Day show two-thirds of Latino voters back Biden as GOP confident there is growing support
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Donald Trump pointed to a nonscientific website poll hosted by Spanish-language news service Telemundo – which anyone could click – to claim overwhelming "Hispanic population" support.
During an appearance on Fox & Friends on Fox News on Tuesday morning, the president said the “Hispanic population poll” put him at “77 per cent.”
A post-debate web poll hosted by Telemundo showed that 66 per cent of respondents believed that the president “won” the first debate between him and his Democratic opponent Joe Biden on 29 September.
Most polling shows the opposite – the former vice president polled at 62 per cent with Latinos, according to a September poll from Telemundo, NBC News and The Wall Street Journal.
According to October polling from the Pew Research Center, roughly two-thirds of Latino registered voters are “somewhat or very confident” in Mr Biden on five issues – including the coronavirus pandemic, national unity, foreign policy, criminal justice and enforcement, and the economy – with increasing confidence over the last several months from a similar poll in June.
More than 32 million Latinos could participate in 2020 elections, making Latino voters the largest non-white voting bloc in the US. But election analysts have stressed that Latino Americans are not monolithic in political identity or ideology, as campaigns have sought support from a growing and diverse voting population.
In Florida, 2.5 million Latinos – making up 17 per cent of the state’s electorate – are registered to vote, according to Pew Research Center. That’s up by nearly 500,000 people from 2016, outpacing voter growth from previous election cycles.
The battleground state, which the president flipped in 2016, has the largest Latino electorate among all swing states and the third-largest Latino electorate in the US overall, behind California (7.9 million) and Texas (5.6 million), according to Pew.
The president received roughly 28 per cent of Latino voter support in 2016.
A recent analysis of polling data from FiveThirtyEight shows that the president has support from 35 per cent of Hispanic and Latino voters under the age of 45 heading into Election Day.
The president’s campaign will head to Pennsylvania on Tuesday and North Carolina on Wednesday following stops over the weekend in the western US, including Nevada and California.
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