A new national survey of Hispanic voters shows that US President Joe Biden is winning over former President Donald Trump by 58% to 31% of voting intentions.
However, this result is not good news for Biden, nor for his party.
The poll, conducted by Univision, shows that Biden has fallen eight percentage points among Hispanic voters since the network conducted a similar survey three years ago. In September 2020, Biden led Trump by 66% to 31% of the vote, with the rest of the voters undecided.
The new poll claims to be the largest conducted among Hispanics in the current election cycle, and covered 1,400 Hispanic voters, including 625 who identified as Republicans.
At first glance, it is difficult for me to understand how 31% of Hispanics in the United States can vote for Trump, the idol of the most racist and anti-immigrant sectors of the United States.
Trump began his 2016 presidential campaign by saying that the majority of Mexican immigrants are criminals and rapists and as recently as last week he announced that if he wins the election he will carry out “the largest national deportation operation in the history of the United States.” .
While it is true that the United States has a problem with undocumented migrants, Trump did very little to solve it when he was president, and he still does not propose any viable solution.
Trump has consistently refused to support comprehensive immigration reform supported by Democrats and moderate Republicans that would simultaneously take more drastic measures to secure the border and provide a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants who have paid taxes for many years.
It is as if Trump preferred to keep the immigration problem alive so as not to lose a key issue of his election campaign.
But even setting aside the issue of immigration, Trump’s political agenda runs directly counter to the views of most Hispanics, including those who identify as Republicans.
On issues such as affirmative action, abortion, climate change, restrictions on the use of semi-automatic rifles to prevent new mass shootings or bans on school books that teach the history of abuses against African Americans and Latinos, Trump has positions diametrically opposed to those of most Hispanics.
Take the issue of weapons as an example. It is the second most important issue for Hispanics, after the cost of living, according to the Univision survey.
Trump prides himself on being a strong supporter of “arms rights” and opposes bills to restrict the use of semi-automatic assault weapons, as was done between 1994 and 2004.
By comparison, 72% of Hispanic voters would support a federal law banning semi-automatic assault weapons, including 47% of Hispanic Republicans, according to the Univision poll.
Even more enigmatic is why many Venezuelans, Cubans and Nicaraguans in the United States, who fled brutal dictatorships, support a would-be populist autocrat like Trump.
In addition to embracing the dictators of Russia and North Korea, Trump attempted a coup in his own country after losing the 2020 election.
All of this raises the question of why, despite Trump’s anti-Hispanic agenda, 31% of Hispanics still support the former president.
The answer is that the main concern of Hispanic voters is inflation. 51% of Hispanics say the cost of living is the most important issue, according to the Univision survey. And many of them believe that Trump, coming from the business world, is the one who can best solve it.
So my prediction for the 2024 election, if it ends up being a Biden-Trump contest, is this: If inflation stays under control, Biden will win a second term, because all the other issues (affirmative action, abortion, measures against weapons of war, etc.) will come to the fore among Hispanics and among the majority of the population.
On the other hand, if inflation rises and becomes the main issue, the other issues take a backseat, and Trump wins.
That easy.
© El Nuevo Herald. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC
2023-10-08 13:01:57
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