Democrats have narrowed in on what used to be a double digit enthusiasm gap across Latino likely voters in the aftermath of the top-ticket switch, according to a new Axios Vibes/Harris poll from Monday.
Since Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz have taken the reins, Latino Democrats and Latino Republicans are nearly tied for enthusiasm, with 83% and 84% respectively saying they are now extremely likely to vote, according to the poll. Prior to President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race in July, only 71% of Latino Democrats said they would likely vote, which came short of the 86% of Latino Republicans who said the same.
“It’s back to a wide-open race,” John Gerzema, CEO of The Harris Poll, told Axios. “With Latinos, we were seeing this pronounced shift in enthusiasm toward Trump and a populist message. Now, this is a new race. It’s a reset.”
Now that the Democratic party has swapped the top of the ticket, voters are able to refocus on policy issues.
“With Biden’s age out of the way, Latino voters are saying finally we can talk about the issues that really matter,” Gerzema told Axios. “Those issues are first and foremost economics.”
Inflation remains a top issue for Latino voters that transcends partisan lines, according to the poll. Other policy priorities include housing prices, jobs and wages as well as crime and safety.
The Biden-Harris administration approved several initiatives like the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act which have hiked up the federal deficit to $35 trillion for the first time in American history. The American Rescue Plan, which was passed in March of 2021, authorized $1.9 trillion in spending while the Inflation Reduction Act, which passed in August of 2022, approved another $750 billion in spending.
Harris was the tie-breaking vote in the Senate that pushed the Inflation Reduction Act to the White House.
Independent Latinos remain the least enthusiastic compared to their partisan counterparts, with just 52% reporting that they are extremely likely to vote, according to the poll.
The largest increase in enthusiasm has been across millennial Latino voters, with nearly 80% reporting they are extremely likely to vote, which is a 16 percentage point increase from when Biden was still in the running in July, according to the poll. Women and Gen Z Latino voters have shown smaller increases.
The Axios Vibes/Harris poll surveyed 3,604 U.S. adults and was conducted online between Aug. 9 to Aug. 13 with 575 respondents identified as Latino and 459 respondents identified as Latino voters. The margin of error for Latino voters is 5.5 percentage points.
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