Kamala Harris’ advantage with Latinos slips to lowest for Dems in four election cycles

Democrats’ advantage with Latino voters has dwindled to the lowest levels seen in four presidential election cycles under Vice President Kamala Harris, a new poll has found.

Harris maintains a 14-point lead over President Donald Trump with the critical voting bloc — 54% to 40% — with 6% of Latino voters undecided, according to a new NBC News/Telemundo/CNBC national poll, which sampled registered voters of Latino descent.

The VP’s modest showing is a far cry from Democrats’ performance with Latino voters in recent elections.

Democrats enjoyed a 33-point advantage in the 2020 presidential election, a 38-point edge in 2016 and a 44-point margin in 2012 among Latino voters, per NBC exit polling data.

A mélange of polling has indicated Trump is gaining ground among Latino voters, who represent the largest racial or ethnic minority in the US.

Latino voters also favor Democrats to control Congress instead of Republicans by a margin of 54% to 42%, the poll found. That similarly marks a decline relative to past election cycles.

On specific issues, Latinos favored Harris, 59, when it comes to treating immigrants humanely by 39 points, abortion by 34 points, having the right temperament by 28 points, representing change by 21 points and getting the country to head in the right direction by 12 points.

They favored Trump, 78, on the economy by four points, tackling inflation by nine points and addressing the border by 13 points.

A sizeable 62% of Latino voters feel that immigration helps more than it hurts, compared to 35% who feel the opposite. That 35% is the largest number of Latino voters who have felt that way in two decades, per the poll.

Among voters writ large, only 50% feel immigration helps more than it hurts, versus 43% who believe the opposite. That’s a shift from 2016 when voters said they felt that way by a margin of 54% to 35%.

Seemingly driving Trump’s gains among the critical voting bloc are Latino men, who were split between Republicans and Democrats at 47% apiece. That’s a stark change from 2020, when Latino men favored Democrats 54% to 34%.

Latina women also shifted in Trump’s direction, though still favored Democrats over Republicans 60% to 34%. For context, in 2020, Latina women hewed a lopsided 71% toward Democrats and 20% toward Republicans.

Polls had generally shown warning signs for Biden with minority voters prior to Harris taking over the top of the ticket in July.

Harris has maintained that she needs to earn the votes of different minority groups and shouldn’t take them for granted.

“I think it’s very important to not operate from the assumption that black men are in anybody’s pocket,” Harris told a panel at a National Association of Black Journalists event earlier this month when pressed about Trump’s gains with black men.

“I’m working to earn the vote.”

Both Trump and Harris are slated to appear in dueling town halls with the American Spanish network Univision later this month as they work to court Hispanic and Latino voters.

Trump will participate in a Univision town hall from Miami on Oct. 8 while Harris will do the same from Las Vegas on Oct. 10.

The NBC News/Telemundo/CNBC Latino survey sampled 1,000 registered Latino voters between Sept. 16-23 with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Harris is also topping Trump nationally by 2 percentage points in the most recent RealClearPolitics aggregate of multi-candidate polling. She’s also up in the no-tossup RCP Electoral College map.