Univision poll: Overwhelming majority of Latino voters oppose Trump

By Fusion Staff  |  July 16, 2015 | 1:14pm
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It’s officially Trump-mania in the Republican primary, with multiple polls showing Donald Trump leading the field of Republican presidential candidates. Despite his repeated anti-Mexican and anti-immigrant comments, Trump says he plans to appeal to Latino voters as well: “I’ll win the Latino vote,” he told NBC News last week.

A survey from Univision released today suggests that is highly unlikely. 79% of respondents said they found Trump’s comments offensive. He’s in fourth place among Latino Republican voters. And a Hillary Clinton-Donald Trump matchup would be a massacre among Latino voters: 70% say they’d vote for Clinton, while only 16% say they’d vote for Trump.

The survey, which interviewed 1,400 Latino registered voters between June 12 and 25 and then between July 7 and 13, also found that Jeb Bush is leading the fight for Republican Latino voters, while Clinton’s opponents are all but unknown to Latino voters. In addition, 92% of the Latino voters interviewed said they are very likely to vote in the 2016 elections. The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.62 percentage points. (Fusion is a joint partnership of ABC and Univision.)

The Trump fiasco has damaged the Republican Party among Latino voters, according to the survey: 32% of respondents said they thought Trump’s comments were representative of the party as a whole, and the percentage of voters who had an unfavorable opinion of the party went from 52% to 56% after his campaign announcement. 74% said they agree with the growing parade of companies (such as Univision) who have ended business relationships with Trump in the wake of his comments.

Clinton crushes all Republican challengers in head-to-head matchups, ranging from 64% (versus Bush) to 70% (versus Trump) of the Latino vote. (In comparison, 71% of Latinos voted for President Obama and 27% backed Mitt Romney in 2012.)

Meanwhile, Bush is leading among Republican Latino voters, with 38% supporting him, 22% supporting Marco Rubio, and 12% supporting Ted Cruz. Perhaps surprisingly, Trump (at 7%) is polling above Scott Walker and Rand Paul (both at 5%).

Marco Rubio was the only Republican candidate tested who had a higher positive than negative favorability among Latino voters, with 35% having a favorable opinion on him and 34% having unfavorable. Bush came in at 36/45, Cruz at 26/36, Paul at 22/32, Walker at 15/23, and Trump at 17/71.

Meanwhile, Clinton had a 68% favorable rate, with just 26% unfavorable. That’s better than respondents’ perception of Obama, who got 64% favorable and 31% unfavorable.

On the Democratic side, 73% of Latino Democratic voters said they would vote for Clinton in the primary, 10% said Joe Biden, 3% said Bernie Sanders, and just 1% said Martin O’Malley. Clinton’s challengers haven’t had much success in introducing themselves to Latino voters: 68% of respondents said they had no opinion on Bernie Sanders or didn’t know enough about him to answer, and 74% said the same about Martin O’Malley.

Jobs and education were the most important issues to respondents. 54% also said they would be more likely to back a presidential candidate who supports a path to citizenship or legal status for undocumented immigrants.

Language also matters, at least to some Latino voters. The survey, which was conducted in both English and Spanish, showed that 26% of respondents would be more likely to vote for a candidate who speaks Spanish fluently, while 68% don’t care. Among respondents who prefer speaking Spanish over English, 40% say a candidate’s Spanish skills would positively impact their vote.

Bush and Rubio speak fluent Spanish, while Cruz has described himself as speaking “lousy” Spanish.

You can read the full poll results here.

Related coverage:

• Pitbull says he won’t go to Trump hotels anymore

• Martin O’Malley: Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric is ‘hate speech’

• Check yourself: A mandatory reading list for Donald Trump

Casey Tolan is a National News Reporter for Fusion based in New York City.

 
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