Republican Donald Trump has all but erased the Democrats’ long-held lead among Hispanic men ahead of the Nov. 5 presidential election, when he will face Democrat Kamala Harris, according to a Reuters/Ipsos analysis of polls. .
Former President Trump now trails Vice President Harris by just 2 percentage points among Hispanic men (44% to 46%) compared to his 19-point deficit to Democrat Joe Biden at the same point in 2020, according to the analysis from more than 15,000 responses to Reuters/Ipsos polls conducted through October 21, the same period as four years ago.
Trump’s gains have been offset by increased support for Harris among white women, who favored him over Biden by 12 points at the end of 2020, but now lean Republican by 3 points (46% to 43). %).
The two candidates are locked in an exceptionally close race, with Harris rising only marginally – 46% to 43% – in the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted between October 16 and 21.
These swings are part of broader shifts in the coalitions each candidate is counting on for victory, with Trump widening his lead among Hispanic and black voters — particularly men — while Harris has trimmed the party’s long-standing positive margin. Republicans among white voters, gaining ground among women.
Robert Alomia, a Hispanic voter from Elizabeth, New Jersey, who works at a security company, said he respects Trump’s career as a businessman and plans to vote for him this year after sitting out the 2020 election.
“We need people who think quickly and people who are willing to lead; he is a leader,” said Alomia, 42, who said he also sympathized with Trump’s hardline views on immigration. “There are people who come to the country, where they get everything, and basically the door is open for them.”
Trump has accused the Biden administration of leaving the southern border open to migrants, while Harris has responded to that complaint by blaming Trump for pressuring Republicans in Congress to scrap a bipartisan border security bill that would have tightened border controls.
Hispanic voters, the fastest-growing segment of the American electorate, have leaned heavily Democratic in most presidential elections since the 1970s, but Trump has made significant gains.
Analysis of recent Reuters/Ipsos polls shows Trump has the support of 37% of registered Hispanic voters, up from 30% at the same time in 2020. Harris has 51% compared to Biden’s 54% four years earlier. The figures are subject to sampling error and have precision levels of between 2 and 6 percentage points.
Trump ended up winning 38% of Hispanic votes in 2020, 21 points behind Biden but still the highest turnout for a Republican candidate since President George W. Bush won 44% in 2004, according to a poll analysis. 2020 exit figures from the Pew Research Center and historical figures compiled by the American Enterprise Institute.
Change among black men
The Republican is also on track to reduce the Democrats’ strength in the black electorate. About 18% of black men chose him in recent Reuters/Ipsos polls (up from 14% four years earlier), as did 8% of black women, up from 4%. Polls leading up to the 2020 election showed that about 8% of black voters overall chose Trump in 2020, while the recent Reuters/Ipsos poll shows him at 12%.
Republican campaign strategist Kristin Davison said Trump is courting black voters by convincing them that the Democratic Party is too extreme on social issues.
“That’s what Trump has been able to do with black men and with Hispanic men in the last four years, not only on the issues of the economy and hard work, but also with the country and the family,” he said.
America’s history of racial tension and injustice is very much on the minds of Trump supporters and detractors. Trump asked black voters during his 2016 presidential campaign, “What the hell do you have to lose?”
“A lot of people could play the race card. They could say he’s racist, they could say he’s using black people. They could say a lot of things. But for me, personally, I feel like he showed that he wants to see everyone win,” said Kedrick Benford, a Black voter from Houston who didn’t vote in 2020 but said he thinks he’ll vote for Trump this time.
Benford, 30, a self-employed trader, said he considered Trump to have more experience than Harris.
Harris has kept the race close in part by winning white women, who accounted for about four in 10 voters in 2020, double the combined share of Black and Hispanic voters.
Although white men’s percentage of support for the two candidates remains virtually unchanged, Harris’s boost among white women means that Trump only leads by nine points among white voters overall, compared to when he led Trump. Biden by 14 points between them in 2020.
Republican strategist Davison said many women have turned to Harris in part because Democrats have effectively targeted them on abortion after the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that ended federal safeguards for her legal practice.
The women are also assessing “the stark contrast in leadership and character between the vice president and Trump, which is influencing their decisions,” said Meghan Hays, a Democratic strategist and former communications aide to President Biden.
“The vice president must widen her lead among women voters to offset Trump’s lead among black and Latino men,” Hays added. “This election will be won by the smallest margin.”
Donna Berg, a white woman from St. Charles, Illinois, voted for Trump in 2016 and again “reluctantly” in 2020, but Berg decisively ruled out Trump after the attack on the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.
“After January 6, it was all over,” Berg said. He said the Republican Party has veered toward extremism under Trump’s leadership and that he would vote for Harris this year. “I’m not necessarily going to vote for her, but I’m going to vote against Trump.”
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