Democrats are losing ground when it comes to Hispanic support, a pivotal voting bloc in the 2022 midterms.
"With the overall Hispanic population growing at a faster rate than any other demographic in the U.S., both parties know that the 2022 midterm kingmakers could be these Hispanic voters," Suffolk University Political Research Center Director David Paleologos told The Washington Examiner. "We've found the issue of education to be disproportionately higher among Hispanics in many of our polls, along with immigration, as well as socialist political attacks from Republicans."
According to Republican strategist Cesar Conda, "Republicans can accelerate the shift among Hispanics by not only offering real solutions on education, jobs and the economy, and crime but by opposing the Democrats' big government socialism and wokeness."
Biden’s vaccine mandates are "a huge concern" among Hispanics, who worry about their job security, according to Conda. The group broadly supports secure borders, he added.
"Recognize that Hispanics are not monolithic. Each subgroup has slightly different issue sets," the consulting firm Navigators Global said. "Immigration reform to legalize the undocumented isn’t a unifying issue among Hispanic populations: Mexican Americans are far more animated by immigration reform than are Puerto Ricans or Cuban voters, for example. Statehood for Puerto Rico is a top issue for Puerto Rican voters in central Florida."
President Biden has appointed several Hispanic cabinet members: Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, and Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona.
In a White House-organized call with reporters, Becerra and Rep. Raul Ruiz, D-Calif., the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, called the Build Back Better legislation "historic" and said it was a "tremendous investment" in American families, NBC News reported.
Becerra said the act would help families pay for child care, preschool, and Obamacare health insurance plans.
Ruiz and Becerra said the child care provision, which would cap child care costs for six years at 7% for families earning up to 250% of their states’ median incomes, would help Latinos.
Democrats disagree over how to refer to Latinos and Hispanics, the Examiner noted, with backlash over the White House and Democratic National Committee embracing the term "Latinx."
Hispanic voters account for about 1 in 8 eligible voters and are one of the fastest-growing groups in the electorate. Republicans have made gains among Hispanic voters, who are now evenly split between the two parties, according to a Wall Street Journal Poll released last week.
The poll asked which party Hispanics would back if the election were held today, and 37% said the Republican congressional candidate, 37% the Democrat, while 22% were undecided. Last year, more than 60% told pollsters they would vote for their House Democrat contender, researchers found.
"Latinos are more and more becoming swing voters ... They’re a swing vote that we’re going to have to fight for," said Democrat pollster John Anzalone, whose company conducted The Wall Street Journal Poll along with the firm of Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio.
Hispanic voters viewed Republicans in Congress as being superior on some economic issues like inflation and reducing the federal deficit, as well as being better able to secure the border.
But Hispanic voters say congressional Democrats got higher marks for controlling the COVID-19 pandemic, rebuilding infrastructure, and making health care more affordable.
There are gender differences among Hispanic voters when it comes to their political affiliation, with Hispanic men favoring Republican economic policies by a margin of 17 points, and Hispanic women favoring Democrats' economic policies by 10 points. A majority of Hispanic men said they would like to revert to former President Trump's policies, while a majority of Hispanic women said they would prefer to retain President Biden’s policies, the Journal poll found.
"You see in this poll that there’s a group of Hispanic men who were without a doubt enticed by Trump and have become more Republican. We have more work to do on that," said Anzalone, referring to Democrat candidates and their allies.
The Journal survey included 1,500 registered voters, including 165 Hispanic voters. The margin of error for the Hispanic sample was plus or minus 7.6 percentage points.
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