New polling from NBC/Telemundo has Democrats still comfortably leading among Latino voters, but with a substantially reduced lead from just a few years ago:
The headlines from our national NBC/Telemundo Latino poll:
1. Democrats hold a 21pt lead in congressional preference among Latino voters (54%-33%).
But that advantage is down from past cycles, including 10 yrs ago when NBC/Telemundo had Democrats at +42 pic.twitter.com/2Mfx7pqvuR
— Mark Murray (@mmurraypolitics) October 2, 2022
The breakdown for party preference also varies significantly by issue:
3. Democrats have the advantage with Latino voters on abortion, addressing their community's concerns, health care and protecting democracy.
GOP has the edge on economy, border security and crime pic.twitter.com/cIj3dOShqn
— Mark Murray (@mmurraypolitics) October 2, 2022
This is an important wrinkle to the ongoing discussion about the potential for a “Hispanic realignment” toward the GOP: As the folks on the FiveThirtyEight podcast noted last month, recent polling shows that while the GOP hasn’t made major gains with the demographic yet, Democrats have lost ground. Latinos are less loyal to the Democratic Party than they once were, but they’re still not sure about Republicans. That means the rapidly growing voting bloc is increasingly up for grabs — but it’s also a warning to the GOP to not declare victory too soon.