Even though Donald Trump has claimed that he loves “the Hispanics” and “the African-American people”, the Republican presidential nominee is deeply unpopular with voters of color, 88 percent of whom reported unfavorable views of him, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released last week. That’s 29 percentage points higher than his 59 percent unfavorable rating with white voters.
Looking at Trump’s new unfavorable numbers, combined with those from last month’s poll, shows that more than three-quarters of each group had a “strongly unfavorable” view of him. Yet, the candidate has continued his attacks on minorities. In recent weeks, Trump has attacked a federal judge because of his Mexican heritage, stepped up his call for a ban on Muslim immigrants and suggested President Obama sympathized with Islamist terrorists.
The presumptive Republican nominee’s heavy handed comments against the Latino community is sparking a surge in the number of citizenship applications and voter registrations. Luis Alvarado, a Republican consultant in Los Angeles, said Trump’s recent attacks on Judge Curiel were even more troubling than his rants about undocumented immigrants. “If he seemed to be addressing a small percentage of the Latino population with his comments about those who are undocumented, he has expanded it to include every Latino, and for that matter every minority in the country,” Alvarado said.
Maria Teresa Kumar, president and The Voto Latino Action Network, issued a statement Thursday noting that “It was one year ago today when Donald Trump began his presidential campaign with attacks against immigrants and Latinos.” Kumar continued on by saying, “We have fought back by reminding all candidates that our voice matters and that we will not be made to feel less than American,” Kumar said. Many Republican strategists, including Alvarado predict that Trump will get less Hispanic support than Republican nominee Mitt Romney got in 2012, when he got about 27 percent, according to network exit polling.
Overall 70 percent of Americans have an unfavorable view of Trump — up 10 points from last month, including a 56 percent majority who say they “strongly” view him this way. While Trump’s unpopularity with African Americans and Hispanics offers Democrats a chance at expanding the party’s advantage with both groups, this could be partly offset by Clinton’s weakness with white voters. Her 67-percent unfavorable rating among whites in the two most-recent Post-ABC polls is 11 points higher than Obama’s at a similar point in 2012.
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