Half of Latino voters say immigration will be crucial in deciding their vote

Exclusive: A majority of Hispanic voters believe there is a crisis at the border, and the candidates’ stance on immigration will be key in how they decide to cast their vote

Kamala Harris visiting the border on a campaign stop (Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Tensions at the US-Mexico border have long been a staple of Donald Trump’s campaigns against the Democrats, with his 2016 promises to “build the wall” playing an instrumental part in his election.

This year, the border crisis and illegal immigration are once again front-and-center — for both candidates. But how do Hispanic voters feel about these issues?

The majority of Hispanic voters (60 percent) believe that there is a migrant crisis at the southern border of the United States, according to an exclusive new poll from Prolific for The Independent.

The poll of 855 Hispanic participants on the Prolific platform has been adjusted to be nationally representative.

This belief transcends party lines, as even 46 percent of Democrats admit that there is a crisis at the border.

Republican Latinos are unsurprisingly the most likely to say there is a border crisis (91 percent).

The influx of immigrants at the southern border is one of the most crucial issues in the election campaign (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Overall, the poll shows Harris as the clear favorite among Hispanic voters, with 62 percent of the vote and Trump at 32 percent.

Yet Trump has a substantial 19-point lead among Hispanic independent voters, well above the national average for independents.

Andrew Gordon, researcher at Prolific, says: “Immigration and border concerns appear to be key drivers in shaping the preferences of Latino independents in this election.”

“Given that independents make up 31% of the Latino electorate, this division could potentially tilt the overall Latino vote more toward the Republican side on November 5.”

Rural Hispanic voters are the only other group among whom Trump has a small lead, at 47 percent of the vote compared to 45 percent for Harris.

This decreases to 34 percent support for Trump among suburban Hispanic voters, and just 22 percent among those living in urban areas.

Though Latinos are more inclined towards Trump than Latinas, according to the poll, they still appear to be voting Harris overall; and the political gender divide is certainly less pronounced in the Hispanic community than on a national scale.

Half of all Hispanics (51 percent) say that the two candidates’ stances on immigration will be very or extremely important in deciding their vote.

Just 6 percent say that immigration policies are not at all important to how they will vote.

Though Republican Hispanics are the most likely to say that immigration is central to their vote (69 percent), it is still important for Democrats and independents alike.

Retirement-age Hispanic voters are the most likely to say that the candidates’ stance on immigration is extremely important (50 percent), followed by rural (42 percent) and college-educated (37 percent) Hispanics.

Protesters demonstrate outside a detention facility housing undocumented immigrants in 2018, during Donald Trump’s first term (Getty Images)

This election is shaping up to be one of the most contentious on the border in recent years.

Trump and the Republican Party are attempting to paint Harris as soft on crime and immigration, while promising a “bloody story” for millions of immigrants who will be deported under his possible presidency.

Nearly six in 10 Hispanics are very or extremely concerned about the possibility of a Trump presidency, according to Prolific’s poll.

Harris, for her part, has met these critiques with a combination of approaches.

Harris has been fighting back against GOP accusations that she is softer on the border than her rival (AP)

On the one hand, she has leaned on more traditional Democratic standpoints such as pathway to citizenship.

On the other, the Harris campaign clearly recognises the growing concerns of border security among the electorate, and has recently amped up her reputation as a “border-state prosecutor” during her time in California.

A Harris campign ad talks about how she “took on drug cartels and jailed gang members”, and does little to separate immigration issues from the prevailing Republican image of crime.

Last week, Harris appealed to Hispanic voters by appearing in a town hall on leading Spanish-language network Univision; in which she spoke about the bipartisan border bill which Republicans squashed earlier this year.

In comparison to Trump, 30 percent of Hispanic voters are very concerned about a Harris presidency, while the majority (50 percent) are not concerned at all.

Overall, however, the single most important issue for four in 10 Hispanic voters is the economy, which is in line with most national polls across demographics.

In addition, a fifth of Hispanic voters say that healthcare is the most important issue for them in this election, above immigration.

In 2020, nearly a third of all people on Medicaid and CHIP were Hispanic (28 percent), although this group makes up just 19 percent of the population.

This amounts to around 25 million Hispanic people in the US who are enrolled in free health insurance; meanwhile, Trump and the Republican Party are proposing to get rid of Obamacare, with no clear alternative.