Donald Trump, who is currently leading the Republican presidential contest in national polling, claims he will win the Latino vote in 2016. However, new polling from NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Telemundo underscores the ridiculousness of Trump’s boast, demonstrating instead that the vast majority of Latino voters hold an unfavorable view towards Trump. For example, 75% view Trump negatively, 61% view him very negatively while just 13% have a positive view.
This is unsurprising, given Trump’s racist remarks that Mexicans and other immigrants in our country today are criminals, drug dealers and rapists.
The new poll numbers, highlighted in the below recap from NBC News reporter Carrie Dann, are another warning sign for Republicans heading into the 2016 election cycle. According to the most likely scenarios involving the composition and turnout of the 2016 electorate, Latino Decisions recently assessed that the eventual Republican nominee will need the votes of 42 to 47 percent of Latinos nationally to win a majority of the popular vote.
See below for the new polling numbers and accompanying recap from NBC News:
“Three in four Latinos say they have a negative view of Donald Trump, and more than half believe that his comments about Mexican immigrants were racist and inappropriate, according to a new NBC News/ Wall Street Journal/ Telemundo poll.
The poll of 250 Latinos found that 75 percent view the real estate mogul and GOP presidential front-runner unfavorably, with 61 percent saying that their view of him is ‘very negative.’ Just 13 percent of respondents said they have a positive view of Trump.
The Republican presidential candidate has claimed that Latino voters ‘love’ and support him, citing some state-based polls. But the new national oversample of Latino adults found that more than half believe his rhetoric about immigration is offensive.
During his announcement speech in June, Trump said that Mexico is ‘sending people that have lots of problems… They are bringing drugs. They are bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.’
Asked to assess that comment, 55 percent of Latinos said that the remarks were ‘insulting and racist and have no place in a campaign for president.’
Another 29 percent said that ‘Trump should have been more careful with the language he used, but he is raising an important issue.’ Fourteen percent said that ‘Trump had the guts to say exactly what was on his mind about an important problem we need to deal with.’
A broad majority of those polled also believes that Trump is doing damage to the GOP’s image.
Sixty-nine percent of Latinos surveyed said that they believe Trump is hurting the Republican Party’s image, while just 12 percent said he is helping it. Sixteen percent said he is having no impact on perceptions of the GOP.”
