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Latino Voters Poised to Vote Against Trump by Historic Margins

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New polling of Latino voters from NBC News/WSJ/Telemundo finds that Hillary Clinton leads Trump by a 70%-17% margin among Latinos in a head-to-head matchup.

The polling also finds positive signs for Latino engagement, as an accompanying poll summary from NBC News notes:

“Sixty-nine percent of Latino voters now say they are very interested in the election, compared to 60 percent who said the same last month. And more than eight in ten — 82 percent — say they are absolutely certain to vote, a share that rivals pre-election polling before President Barack Obama’s win in the 2012 presidential election. What’s more, the increase in interest in the election among Latinos has come largely from groups most likely to support Clinton, including younger voters, Democratic-leaning Latinos and those who speak primarily Spanish.”

Similarly, the newest installment of the Latino Decisions weekly tracking poll of Latino voters, commissioned by NALEO and Telemundo, finds that Clinton leads Trump by a 75%-14% margin. The poll also finds that 82% of Latino voters now describe themselves as “almost certain” to vote – up 11 percentage points since early October. The Latino Decisions team also recently unveiled a new “Latino vote predict” estimate that, using likely voter modeling and poll results, predicts that Latino voters are set to deliver the most lopsided presidential vote on record: 82% for Hillary Clinton; 15% for Donald Trump; and 3% for third party candidates.

New CBS News polling, meanwhile, underscores that immigration is a big factor in Latino voters’ political views this cycle. By a margin of 79-2%, Latino voters believe Donald Trump’s talk about illegal immigration is “too harsh” instead of “too easy,” and 89% of Latino voters support allowing undocumented immigrants to stay legally in the United States in contrast to Trump’s deportation-focused immigration policy.

All of this is very bad news for the Republican Party and its national future. As a reminder, according to Latino Decisions 2012 Election Eve polling, Latinos supported President Obama over Mitt Romney by a 75%-23% margin, and 71%-27% in the media-sponsored exit polls. That result was so troubling that the Republican National Committee formed a blue-ribbon commission to write the infamous post-election autopsy report, which recommended that the GOP embrace immigration reform The report noted, “if we do not, our Party’s appeal will continue to shrink to its core constituencies only.”

Yet, as Jamelle Bouie assesses in a new Slate column, “By placing Donald Trump at the top of the ticket and indulging his nativism and xenophobia, the Republican Party has said with its actions that it doesn’t want Latinos in its tent … A GOP that nominates Trump – and embraces nativism – is one that lacks room for all immigrant and nonwhite groups.”

According to Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America’s Voice, “Latino voters are poised to vote against Donald Trump by a historic margin. This matters as the Latino vote will be bigger than ever – as measured by percentage of the overall vote and the actual number of voters – and many swing states have substantial Latino populations. Instead of learning from the RNC’s autopsy, Trump has turned to the so-called ‘missing white voter’ theory of winning. This theory says that Latinos don’t matter much as long as disaffected white voters turn out in record numbers. We will see how that strategy turns out in three weeks.”