According to the New York times, it’s not just the public polls. Recent private polls conducted by political campaigns are filled with bad news for President Trump. He is doing eight to 10 percentage points worse in many congressional districts than he did in 2016, Dave Wasserman of The Cook Political Report writes.
His struggles have jeopardized the Republicans’ Senate majority and will probably lead to further Democratic gains in the House. “It would be a pleasant surprise if we only lost 10 House seats,” one Republican member of Congress told The Cook Political Report.
But there is one exception, and it will be familiar to regular readers of this newsletter: Trump and other Republicans don’t seem to be doing worse among Latino voters than in 2016. Nationwide, Republicans are still winning about one-third of the Latino vote, polls show.
Why is Trump holding steady with Latinos? There is no one answer, partly because Latinos are such a diverse group (many of whom also identify as white). But an important part of the explanation appears to involve gender. Recent Times polls of battleground states show that the gender gap among Latino voters — 26 percentage points — is significantly larger than it is among Black, white or Asian voters:
Among Latina women, Biden leads Trump by a whopping 34 percentage points (59 percent to 25 percent). Among Latino men, Biden’s lead is only eight points (47 percent to 39 percent). These patterns are similar across both Latino college graduates and those without a degree.
My colleague Jennifer Medina recently wrote an eye-opening story called “The Macho Appeal of Donald Trump,” focused on Latino men. The whole story is worth reading, but here is a key passage:
… what has alienated so many older, female and suburban voters is a key part of Mr. Trump’s appeal to these men, interviews with dozens of Mexican-American men supporting Mr. Trump shows: To them, the macho allure of Mr. Trump is undeniable. He is forceful, wealthy and, most important, unapologetic. In a world where at any moment someone might be attacked for saying the wrong thing, he says the wrong thing all the time and does not bother with self-flagellation.
Read more HERE.