Latino voters are the most important and least understood demographic group in the 2024 election cycle.
We are not just the fastest growing group in the United States. We represent more than 70% of the population growth across the country — including the battleground states that will decide the future of the country in November.
Take Pennsylvania. Four years ago, President Biden won the Keystone State by a margin of less than 81,000 votes. In just the first two years of the Biden presidency, the Latino population of the state rose by more than 67,000.
However, most of the polling of Latino voters — and most of the headlines — are based on unreliably small samples of much wider surveys, usually conducted entirely in English. That data is not a great guide to an election where 36.5 million Latinos are eligible to vote, and one in four of them will be voting for the first time.
With the arrival of the Democratic convention, we set out to change that with a bilingual survey of 600 Latino voters nationwide.
The benchmark for Democrats to win across the country is around two-thirds of the Latino vote. When President George W. Bush secured 40% of Latino votes, he won the White House.
Our poll, led by Matt Barreto of BSP Research, shows that Vice President Kamala Harris has made huge gains among Latinos, compared to Biden.
But it also shows that she remains shy of securing the level of Latino votes that would ensure her victory in November: Harris leads Donald Trump by 52 to 29 points in a multi-candidate race, with 12 points completely undecided.
This is a singular moment in the election, with the change of the Democratic candidate energizing Latino voters — many for the first time in this cycle. In our poll, 57% say they are more interested in the election now, and 68% say they are following the news every day or several times a week.
What Latino voters want to hear might surprise some pundits who think that immigration and border issues are top of mind in our communities. By far the most important issues are the cost of living, jobs and the economy.
On those pocketbook issues, Latino voters are more supportive of Harris than Trump, whereas polls of the broader population suggest the two are running neck and neck on economic opportunity. In our survey, 51% of Latinos say they trust Harris to create better paying jobs for working and middle-class Americans, compared to 33% who say they trust Trump.
Still, it is early days in the Harris campaign and only one-third of Latinos are very informed about her policy agenda.
This is the time for all candidates to engage with Latino voters — to meet the moment when so many are tuning into this election for the first time.
However, Latino voters are not a monolithic bloc, with significant regional differences especially around our countries of origin. Despite a clear tilt towards Democratic candidates, Latinos behave more like persuadable voters than the reliable base of a party — and they need careful persuading in this election, in particular.
What does careful persuasion look like? In Pennsylvania there are 1.06 million Latinos, almost half of whom have Puerto Rican roots. According to our survey, Puerto Ricans feel more strongly favorable to Harris than other Latino voters by a margin of 11 points.
However, within Latino communities, there are other divisions that smart campaigns need to adapt to — chief among them, the gender gap. Among Latinos who are favorable to Trump, the difference between men and women who are supporters is 14 points.
With three months to go, in a finely balanced contest for the presidency, both parties — and the media — need to refine their strategies to understand the complex and critical communities that make up Latino voters. That starts with far more granular detail about the population that is changing the dynamic of this country before our eyes.
Luis A. Miranda Jr. is chair of Latino Victory. Frankie Miranda is the president of the Hispanic Federation.
