Latino voters are expected to have a major impact on this year's election – especially in swing states such as Arizona. Last week, UnidosUS, the largest Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the U.S. released its 2024 Pre-election Poll. The poll was on the Hispanic Electorate with 3,000 Latino voters surveyed around the country.
Clarissa Martinez De Castro, the Vice President of the Latino Vote Initiative for UnidosUS told a media briefing that high housing costs are in part driving concerns about inflation.
“For many Latinos who are part of America's working families, our community is going to feel very acutely any impact on housing costs, on wages,” Martinez De Castro said. “Not surprisingly, those are some of the vectors driving the concerns about inflation, of cost of living, in addition of being standalone concerns on jobs in the economy, the top concern is low wages.”
The UnidosUS poll found that for Latinos the top issue of concern is inflation and the rising cost of living. This is closely followed by jobs and a lack of affordable housing Rounding out the top concerns is the high cost of health care.
UnidosUS did an oversample in Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania because they are major swing states in this election.
Martinez De Castro said that nearly one in five Latino voters are voting for the first time in a presidential election this year. Along with that, 55% of the surveyed population has neither been contacted by any party nor any campaign.
“Early and meaningful outreach is essential, and it is imperative for candidates to connect with these voters and provide concrete solutions to their concerns, to gain their confidence and earn their vote,” Martinez De Castro said.
The survey also examined Senate races such as the one pitting former TV anchor and Republican candidate Kari Lake against Democratic Representative Ruben Gallego in Arizona. Out of 100 voters asked, 55 said they would vote for Gallego, 25 for Lake and 21 said they were undecided.
For the other swing states with a Senate seat race, the Democratic nominee is also leading their Republican counterpart in the current polls.
When asked about who they would support for President, 58 said Kamala Harris, 30 said they would support Donald Trump and 12 said they were undecided. According to the survey, those numbers largely matched polling in other states.
“We have 90% of Democrats saying they'll vote for Harris, and only 81% of Republicans saying they'll vote for Trump,” Gary Segura ,Principal and Co-Founder of BSP [a]Research, said. “Historically, Republicans close ranks better than Democrats do.”
Participants said their data did indicate that Latino voters leaning in the direction of supporting Democratic candidates this Fall, but they said more needs to be done by both parties in terms of outreach to counter the belief that Latino voters do not participate in large numbers on Election Day.
In the meantime, Janet Murgui, President and CEO of Unidos/US said they will keep informing the public.
“UnidosUS created and continues to add data and information to its Hispanic electoral data hub to make readily available polling data on Latino perspectives and priorities,” Murgui said.