_{Originally published in The Latino Newsletter–reprinted with permission.}

On Tuesday, the Hispanic Federation and the Latino Victory Project released a new poll of Latinos in several battleground states. The poll, which included responses from 1,900 Latinos across eight battleground states, is, so far, one of the more comprehensive surveys of Latino battleground voters in the final weeks before Election Day.

I attached the toplines at the end of my post for anyone to download and review the data, because there are a lot of takeaways.

There is one part of the poll, however, that has me a bit excited because it includes a breakdown of 17 (17!) Latino subgroups across gender, age, country of origin and generations. Here is an image of all those subgroups and what they think about presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

There are several subgroups where Harris is doing strongly. She is up +35 with Latina women, +36 with Puerto Rican-born Floridians, +32 with Spanish-language households, +30 with Latinos over 50, +28 with people of Mexican descent, +28 with non-Florida Puerto Ricans (hi, Pennsylvania), +25 with second-generation Latinos, +24 with people of Puerto Rican descent overall, +22 with Latinos 30-49, and +20 with bilingual households.

There are several subgroups where the gap is not as wide. Harris is +16 with people of Central American descent, +16 with those of South American descent, and +17 with Latinos 18-29.

When it comes to Latino men, Harris is +10. She is also +10 with 3rd-generation Latinos, and just +8 with English-language households.

Only one subgroup (people of Cuban descent) shows Trump with a lead over Harris. According to the poll, 56% of Cuban respondents see Trump in a favorable light, compared to Harris’ 50%.

These are a lot of subgroups, but they do align with some generalizations about the 2024 Latino vote and presidential preferences. Overall, Harris is up 61%-38% over Trump across the total poll. Still, having this type of subgroup breakdown available is helpful as we head to Election Day. Yes (you already know this), Latinos are not a monolith at all. Now you have some data, instead of national polls that feature just 100 Latino voters.

A press release about the poll also shared these additional takeaways:

• 71% of registered Latino voters are almost certain they will vote in the 2024 Presidential election and that has remained consistent since our poll in August.
• Harris’ emergence has generated growing enthusiasm across key segments of the Latino electorate, with 60% of respondents replying that they are more interested in voting due to Vice President Harris entering the presidential election.
• Cost of living and inflation remains the top issue by a large margin for Latinos in battleground states: 59% cited it as the top issue.
• Jobs (38%) and housing costs and affordability (32%) rank high after inflation for Latino swing state voters.
• Outside of economic concerns, one in four Latinos in battleground states cited abortion and reproductive rights as a top priority issue.
• Other concerns of significance for Latinos in swing states were gun violence (20%), U.S.-Mexico border issues (16%) and access to affordable health care (15%).
• A clear majority (64%) of Latinos in battleground states are reporting contact with campaigns and Latino civic organizations to encourage them to vote.

You can download the complete toplines here.

Editor’s Note: The Latino Newsletter is a ‘La Voz de Mi Gente 2024’ grantee from the Hispanic Federation for the sole purpose of filing stories about the Latino vote in the 2024 election cycle. All stories published for ‘La Voz de Mi Gente 2024’ or that mention the Hispanic Federation are independently determined by The Latino Newsletter and its publisher, Julio Ricardo Varela. The Latino Newsletter operates with full editorial independence and creates strong firewalls, ensuring that all stories are produced solely at the discretion of its team, free from all external influence.

_{Originally published in The Latino Newsletter–reprinted with permission.}

At a campaign roundtable with Latino supporters in Las Vegas on Saturday, a man who lived illegally in the United States told Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump his immigration story. The man, Elías Trujillo, noted that he is now supporting Trump after initially not fully supporting him in 2016.

“We came here legally, but you know, we overstayed, and we were able to make life here in the United States,” said Trujillo, who is originally from Northern Mexico and came to this country in 1995.

As The Associated Press reported about the roundtable, “At least one person in the audience began laughing and applauding, leading Trujillo to laugh and acknowledge, ‘It is funny.’ Trump smiled as he looked at Trujillo.”

What Trujillo brought up on Saturday aligns with a new survey by Pew Research Center, which shows that 85% of Latino voters view immigration as one of the top five issues “very important for their vote” in this year’s presidential election. Latino supporters of Trump and Kamala Harris prioritize different issues.

Latino Trump supporters cite immigration as a top issue important to their vote (71%), following the economy (93%) and violent crime (73%). By contrast, only 51% of Latino Harris supporters cited immigration as important for their vote, the second lowest share among the 10 issues included in the survey.

A Long-Standing Trope

Wyatt Browne, who co-leads Princeton Students for Immigrant Empowerment, said he thinks Latino Trump supporters prioritize immigration due to the long-standing trope of immigrants being detrimental to the economy and “stealing what was meant to be yours.”

“Given the economic state of the country and the fact that a lot of people are feeling the squeeze on their finances and are feeling the squeeze on accessing social services,” Browne told The Latino Newsletter. “Maybe for immigrant voters who did things ‘the right way’, that rhetoric holds weight.”

Browne said immigration policy is one of the many large differences between the two candidates, even with Harris’ backtracking on her previous stance of decriminalizing illegal border crossings. He also said it makes sense for voters to prioritize the economy and use it as a frame for their stances on immigration.

“I think immigration is really tightly intertwined with people’s vision of the economy,” he said. “That’s one way immigration will impact the election.”

Latino Harris supporters are also more likely than all Harris supporters to cite immigration as a top issue. Latino Harris supporters cite the economy (80%), health care (78%), and gun policy (66%) as the three top issues impacting their vote.

According to Pew, the results of the survey suggest that preferences of Latino voters in the 2024 presidential election look similar to their preferences in 2020. In 2024, 36.2 million Latinos are eligible to vote, a 4 million increase since 2020.

Patricia Fernández-Kelly, a professor of sociology and director of the Center for Migration and Development at Princeton University, said it is important to point out that the Pew survey asks about people’s views on the importance of immigration, but this captures two types of people. The first is people who believe immigration is too high and should be curtailed, and the second is people who see immigration as good for the country and are concerned about the curtailment of immigration.

“The poll results tell an important story, but it’s not the whole story,” she said.

Democrats and Latino Voters

Earlier in September, Roberto Suro, a professor of journalism and public policy at University of Southern California, told NBC News that Harris’ overall polling with Latinos show she had “righted the ship.”

“Harris has made up most of the ground that Biden lost in the last year,” he said. “But it’s still very much a horse race and she’s not necessarily ahead.”

That ground gained, however, has stayed pretty much the same. After some post-convention bumps, NBC News reported in late September that Latino Democratic support for Harris is at its lowest point in the last four presidential cycles.

Immigrants as Voters

According to the Migration Policy Institute, the number of immigrants in the U.S. as well as their share of the U.S. population have both increased steadily since 1970. In addition, one in 10 eligible voters in the U.S. are naturalized citizens, Pew notes.

Overall support for immigration into the U.S. declined in recent years. A July Gallup poll revealed that 55% of U.S. adults would like to see immigration to the U.S. decrease, the highest percentage since 2001. Although the desire for decreased immigration varies by party, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents are all more likely to favor less immigration. Only 16% of respondents want to see immigration increase, the lowest level since 2009.

Anti-Immigration Immigrants

Fernández-Kelly’s research shows that this anti-immigration sentiment is present even among immigrant populations. The longer an immigrant stays in a country, the more they absorb some of the attitudes of the larger population.

“Older immigrants from anywhere, the longer they have resided in the country, the less sympathetic they are going to be towards more recently-arrived immigrants,” she explained to The Latino Newsletter. “Even fairly recently arrived immigrants don't want other immigrants, even from their own country.”

This anti-immigrant sentiment comes despite what she described as evidence of a positive effect of immigration on the economy.

“Immigrants tend to be self-selected. They tend to be looking for opportunities for employment,” she said. “Immigrants, even those who are undocumented, pay into the treasury of the United States.”

She added the immigration process in the U.S. is complicated and lacks coordination, and will continue to be a point of contention.

“Immigration is important,” she said. “I highly doubt immigration is going to stop having salience in this country.”