WASHINGTON - US President Joe Biden is heading into 2024 with concerning numbers among Hispanic voters: A new USA Today/Suffolk survey shows him trailing Donald Trump by five percentage points, with many reluctant to back either candidate.
While it is an especially rough poll, others have also shown him struggling to match his 2020 numbers with a key swath of the Democratic base — and Hispanic leaders say they are seeing the same problems on the ground.
“It’s a matador red flag flying out there — the Hispanic vote is totally up for grabs,” Domingo Garcia, national president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, told Semafor. “[Trump’s] cutting the margins. And in battleground states like Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, that can be a big difference.”
Conversations with leaders of Hispanic groups and political consultants in both parties underscored Biden’s difficult path forward. His challenges with Hispanic voters are not dissimilar to his problems with the broader electorate: Dissatisfaction over inflation, concerns about record-high border crossings, and lack of excitement over his policy accomplishments.
And even as he works to shore up border security with a potential bipartisan deal in Congress, members of his own party warn he could also lose support in November if an agreement ends up being perceived as overly hostile to immigrant communities.
Javier Palomarez, president and CEO of the United States Hispanic Business Council — a leading advocate for Hispanic-owned firms across the U.S. — criticized the administration’s triumphal “Bidenomics” push, arguing it’s not reflective of what people on the ground are actually experiencing.
