Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump – and the GOP as a whole – are deeply underwater with American Latinos, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Telemundo survey shows.
Nearly three in four Latinos say they have a negative view of Trump, with 67% saying their view is “very negative.” Trump, who has called for mass deportation of undocumented immigrants and has derided opponent Jeb Bush for speaking Spanish at campaign events, gets a thumbs up from just 11% of Latinos.
The Republican Party is viewed negatively by a plurality of Latinos as well. More than four in ten have a poor impression of the GOP, compared to 24% who view the party positively.
In contrast, the Democratic Party gets good marks from the fastest-growing minority group in the general electorate. Forty-eight percent of Latinos have a positive view of the party, while 19% say they have a negative view of it.
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And about twice as many Latinos say they’d like to see a Democrat in the White House in 2017 (51%) than a Republican (24%).
Latinos made up about 10% of the electorate in the 2012 presidential race. Mitt Romney captured only 27% of the vote, compared to 71% who supported Barack Obama.
Unlike Trump, several of the other GOP presidential hopefuls are in positive territory with Latinos, but barely so.
Bush, who is married to a Mexican-American woman, is just breaking even with Latino adults. Twenty-nine percent give him a thumbs up, but twenty-seven percent give him a thumbs down (+2). Less well known, but getting similar marks, are Carly Fiorina (+5) and Ben Carson (+3).
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The Democratic Party’s standard bearers, on the other hand, are far more positively assessed, with high marks for Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton (+29), Vice President Joe Biden (+29) and Vermont Democratic senator Bernie Sanders (+18).
The NBC/WSJ/Telemundo oversample of Latinos included interviews with 250 Latino adults between September 20 and September 24. The margin of error is +/- 6.20%.
Carrie Dann