Kamala Harris has neutralised Donald Trump’s edge on the economy among Hispanic voters, and her 13-percentage point lead within that group reflects the fact they vastly prefer her approach to healthcare and climate change, Reuters/Ipsos polling shows.
On those latter issues, Hispanics favour Democratic Vice-President Harris’s approach over Republican former president Trump’s by wide margins – 18 points for healthcare and 23 points for climate change.
A diverse and fast-growing slice of the US electorate who are swing voters, Hispanics are an attractive target for both candidates in a contest that was shaken up in July when Democratic President Joe Biden folded his flagging re-election campaign and passed the torch to Harris.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll, conducted on August 21-28, showed that the top issues for Hispanic registered voters ahead of the November 5 election largely track those of the country at large, with the economy, immigration, healthcare and climate change standing out as the group’s top priorities.
While registered voters overall favour Trump’s approach to the economy over Harris’s by 45% to 36%, Hispanic registered voters viewed them equally, with each drawing 39% support.
That reflects an improvement for Democrats, after a Reuters/Ipsos poll in May showed Biden trailing Trump by four points on the economy in Hispanic voters’ eyes.
Hispanic voters preferred Harris on healthcare policy, by 46% to 29%, and on climate change, with a 46% to 23% lead, bigger leads than she held among the broader electorate, which also favoured her on those two issues.
Trump held the advantage on immigration policy, with Hispanic voters preferring him over Harris 42% to 37%, narrower than his 46% to 36% lead among the broader electorate.
“The Latino vote is probably the most pure swing group of voters in America right now and will be for a long time,” said Chuck Rocha, a Democratic strategist who advised Bernie Sanders’s 2016 campaign, including on Latino outreach.
Trump leads on the economy among men and voters aged 35 and older, while he and Harris are closely matched among women and younger Americans, the new Reuters/Ipsos poll showed.
Harris has a strong lead on the economy among black voters.
The poll was conducted nationally and gathered responses from 4,253 US adults, including 3,562 registered voters and 412 Hispanic registered voters.
It had margins of error of about two percentage points for voters overall and about four points for Hispanics.
Hispanics made up about 14% of voting age US citizens in 2022, up from 9% in Census Bureau estimates for 2005-2009.
Biden won the Hispanic vote by 21 points in 2020, according to an exit poll analysis by Pew Research, so Harris’s current 13 point lead among registered Hispanic voters, should it hold through Election Day, would signal an improvement for Trump.
![Harris boards Air Force 2 for departure at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport. – Reuters
Harris boards Air Force 2 for departure at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport. – Reuters](https://cdn4.premiumread.com/?url=https://gulf-times.com/gulftimes/uploads/images/2024/09/03/218570.jpg&w=800&q=100&f=webp)
Harris boards Air Force 2 for departure at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport. – Reuters