Why Hispanics may be the 'deciding factor' in 2024 election

This article was originally written by Samuel Benson and can be found on KSL here.

Poll after poll shows former President Donald Trump has been gaining ground among Hispanics. President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party as a whole seem to be hemorrhaging support from Hispanics, who once formed a reliably blue voting bloc.

Polling is never perfect, though. The New York Times/Siena College poll in March that showed Trump up six percentage points among Hispanics was slammed by critics for oversampling English-speaking Hispanics (only 3% of interviews with Hispanics were done in Spanish). The poll course-corrected in May and conducted 19% of interviews with Hispanics in Spanish. The result was a 31%-31% tie between Trump and Biden among Hispanic voters.

That doesn't mean Biden is out of the woods. There may be a real sea change among Hispanic voters demonstrated in a poll from the U.S. Hispanic Business Council. The council routinely sends out a survey to its tens of thousands of members across the country. In May, it focused on the presidential election, offering a glimpse into a niche — and severely under-sampled — group of voters: Hispanic small-business owners and workers.

Of the over 1,000 Hispanic respondents, the vast majority — over 70% — said they do not believe Biden's policies have positively impacted them or their businesses. Over one-third of them — 34% — said Trump was better than Biden for their businesses' bottom line; only 21% said Biden was better. And when asked who they plan to support in the presidential election, Trump had a 10-point lead, 43% to 33%.
Javier Palomarez, the council's president and CEO, attended a trade summit in Salt Lake City last week. Palomarez pointed at three things to consider in the data.

First, Hispanics are not a monolith.

"One of the big shocks for me in 2016 was that then-candidate Trump garnered about 29% of the Hispanic vote," Palomarez said.

"And then he turned around in 2020 and garnered about 39% of the Hispanic vote," the council president said.

"He had a ground game — he had people on the ground in local communities, making the connections between his campaign and their needs," he said. "I don't see the same effort on the behalf of the current administration."

Second, immigration is not the top issue for Hispanic residents. When asked to rank a number of issues from most to least important during this presidential election, Hispanic residents ranked the economy as the top issue. Only 13% of Hispanics said immigration was No. 1.

"The fact of the matter is, most Hispanics in this country were born here," Palomarez said.

"Hispanic worry about the same kitchen-table issues that all Americans worry about: We worry about getting our kids to school, we worry about paying the bills, we worry about interest rates and mortgage loans," Palomarez said.

Palomarez's advice for the campaigns was simple: "Don't make everything about immigration."

Third, Hispanic voters could decide the election.

"The current administration is spending a very large amount of time talking to African Americans," Palomarez said.

"That is right and good, and they should continue. But consider this: There are more Hispanics in this country than there are African Americans and Asians combined."

There are significant Hispanic populations in swing states like Arizona, Georgia and Nevada, and the winning candidate will have to speak to those voters.

"The Hispanic vote will be the deciding factor," he said.