By Jason Lange and Bo Erickson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Kamala Harris has neutralized Donald Trump's edge on the economy among Hispanic voters, and her 13 percentage point lead within that group reflects the fact they vastly prefer her approach to healthcare and climate change, Reuters/Ipsos polling shows.
On those latter issues, Hispanics favor Democratic Vice President Harris' approach over Republican former President Trump's by wide margins -- 18 points for healthcare and 23 points for climate change.
A diverse and fast-growing slice of the U.S. electorate who are swing voters, Hispanics are an attractive target for both candidates in a contest that was shaken up in July when Democratic President Joe Biden folded his flagging re-election campaign and passed the torch to Harris.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll, conducted Aug. 21-28, showed that the top issues for Hispanic registered voters ahead of the Nov. 5 election largely track those of the country at large, with the economy, immigration, healthcare and climate change standing out as the group's top priorities.
While registered voters overall favor Trump's approach to the economy over Harris' by 45% to 36%, Hispanic registered voters viewed them equally, with each drawing 39% support. That reflects an improvement for Democrats, after a Reuters/Ipsos poll in May showed Biden trailing Trump by 4 points on the economy in Hispanic voters' eyes.
Hispanic voters preferred Harris on healthcare policy, by 46% to 29%, and on climate change, with a 46% to 23% lead, bigger leads than she held among the broader electorate, which also favored her on those two issues.
Trump held the advantage on immigration policy, with Hispanic voters preferring him over Harris 42% to 37%, narrower than his 46% to 36% lead among the broader electorate.
"The Latino vote is probably the most pure swing group of voters in America right now and will be for a long time," said Chuck Rocha, a Democratic strategist who advised Bernie Sanders' 2016 campaign, including on Latino outreach.
ASPIRATIONAL STORY
Rocha said Harris, who is Black and of South Asian descent and whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from Jamaica and India, is winning support from Hispanics by telling an aspirational life story that has countered Trump's strength on the economy, where he has a 20 point lead among white voters.
Many Hispanic voters have parents or grandparents who immigrated to the United States, and their lower-than-average incomes left them more vulnerable to the surge in U.S. inflation in 2021 and 2022.
Trump leads on the economy among men and voters aged 35 and older, while he and Harris are closely matched among women and younger Americans, the new Reuters/Ipsos poll showed. Harris has a strong lead on the economy among Black voters.
The poll was conducted nationally and gathered responses from 4,253 U.S. adults, including 3,562 registered voters and 412 Hispanic registered voters. It had margins of error of about 2 percentage points for voters overall and about 4 points for Hispanics.
Hispanics made up about 14% of voting age U.S. citizens in 2022, up from 9% in Census Bureau estimates for 2005-2009. Biden won the Hispanic vote by 21 points in 2020, according to an exit poll analysis by Pew Research, so Harris' current 13 point lead among registered Hispanic voters, should it hold through Election Day, would signal an improvement for Trump.
Republican strategists say even with Harris' gains on the economy relative to Biden, Trump is still doing well with Hispanics.
"Hispanics have historically strongly favored the Democratic Party, so for Trump to be breaking even with Harris on the economy has to be seen as a win for him," Giancarlo Sopo, a Republican strategist who led Trump’s 2020 media outreach targeting Hispanic voters.
U.S. inflation has cooled over the last year and in June consumer prices fell for the first time in four years amid cheaper gasoline and moderating rents.
Voter sympathies could shift between now and Election Day and it remains to be seen which, if any, blocs of voters will turn out in droves. Experts say predicting the Hispanic vote is particularly hard in 2024 because Hispanic voters skew younger than the rest of the electorate, so a larger share are first time voters.
"It could be anybody’s race still," said University of Arizona political scientist Lisa M. Sanchez.