The country's large group of Hispanic voters appears to be split fairly evenly when it comes to supporting Republicans and Democrats, The Wall Street Journal reported.
A new Wall Street Journal poll found that, if elections for Congress were held today, 37% of Hispanic voters said they would support the Republican candidate and another 37% said they would vote for the Democrat. A total of 22% said they were undecided.
The Democratic Party, which has depended on Latino support for many years, earned more than 60% of the group's support in the 2020 elections.
Hispanic voters also were divided pretty closely when asked about a hypothetical rematch in 2024 between former President Donald Trump (43%) and President Joe Biden (44%).
Biden last year won 63% support among Hispanic voters — nearly 30 percentage points higher than Trump, according to AP VoteCast.
When asked, "Do you approve or disapprove of the job Joe Biden is doing as President?" 54% of Hispanic voters said they disapproved and 42% said they approved.
"Latinos are more and more becoming swing voters," said Democrat pollster John Anzalone, whose company conducted the Journal survey with the firm of Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio.
"They’re a swing vote that we’re going to have to fight for."
Latinos, one of the fastest-growing groups in the electorate, account for nearly 1 in 8 eligible voters.
Economic issues were the main concern among Hispanic voters, especially men, Anzalone and Fabrizio said.
Hispanic men, by a 17-point margin, said the GOP had the better economic plans. By contrast, Hispanic women, by a 10-point margin, said Democrats had better economic policy.
"This says to me that the economy matters, particularly to Hispanic men," Fabrizio told the Journal. "The economy and economic factors are driving them."
Anzalone credited Trump with making Republicans more popular among Latino men.
"You see in this poll that there’s a group of Hispanic men who were without a doubt enticed by Trump and have become more Republican. [Democrats] have more work to do on that," Anzalone told the Journal.
An in-depth study by Catalist, which compiles and analyzes voter data for Democrat candidates and progressive causes, found that Hispanic voters swung toward Trump by 8 points last year compared to 2016 in the two-party vote.
The Journal survey was conducted from Nov. 16-22 and included 1,500 registered voters, including 165 Hispanic voters. The margin of error for the Hispanic sample was plus or minus 7.6 percentage points.
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