More alarm bells for Biden as the largest poll of Latino voters since the start of the campaign shows a third-party candidate could lead to disaster

With President Joe Biden and Donald Trump facing off again in the presidential election in November, the support of Latino voters will be crucial in what is expected to be an extremely tight rematch. But it could be third-party candidates, not Trump, who have major implications for Biden in battleground states.

The poll commissioned by grassroots political organization Voto Latino found that shifting interest in voting for a third party and the lack of enthusiasm for Biden within Latino communities in some key states should set alarm bells ringing among Democrats.

The survey of likely Hispanic voters in Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada, Texas and Pennsylvania is the largest survey of Latinos in swing states in the 2024 election cycle to date.

It found that Biden had strong support among 40 percent of Latinos, while Trump had strong support among 28 percent of Latinos. But eighteen percent of Latino voters leaned toward a third party.

“Eighteen percent is a remarkably high level, especially more than five months after the election,” said Ameer Patel, general manager of Voto Latino.

It comes as Robert Kennedy Jr. is working to appear as an independent in several battleground states in November.

What Patel found “shocking” is that among third parties, only 7 percent were Republican, while 33 percent were registered Democrats.

A combined 59 percent were under the age of 40, which is a red flag because young voters are expected to play a crucial role in who is elected president and tend to lean more toward Democrats.

Another concern for Democrats: 62 percent of third-party leaners were Latinas.

“By comparison, in Arizona in 2020, three percent of all Latinas… who voted for a third-party candidate in the general election,” Patel said.

‘If RFK Jr. is on the ballot, and these support levels remain at this point even if they drop by half to, say, 8 percentage points or nine percentage points, that’s three times what they were in 2020,” he said. explained.

At the same time, there is a fourteen-point enthusiasm gap when it comes to Republican and Democratic Latino voters. 74 percent of Republicans said they were enthusiastic, while only 60 percent of Democrats did so. Only 37 percent of people aged 29 and under were enthusiastic.

Patel pointed out that in places like Arizona and Nevada, 18- to 29-year-olds made up the largest share of the Latino electorate in 2020.

The data shows that if Biden doesn’t make cuts in the 18 percent voting third in November, he won’t come close to increasing his support among Hispanics in any of the five swing states.

In 2020, elections in several battleground states, including Arizona and Nevada, were decided in Biden’s favor by fewer than 50,000 votes.

When it comes to the issues, the majority of Spanish voters surveyed said inflation and the cost of living were the most important, followed by the economy and employment.

But when it came to these issues, voters were divided over who would do a better job tackling inflation, and Trump generally had a slight advantage when it came to improving the economy and creating fair jobs.

Among Latino voters who voted for Biden in 2020 but said they would not in 2024, 63 percent cited inflation and the cost of living as their top issue.

Another issue identified by Biden 2020 voters who would look elsewhere in 2024 was the war in Gaza, but it was nowhere near the same extent as economic issues. 25 percent called the ongoing war the most important thing.

The poll comes a day after Trump’s campaign announced the launch of Latino Americans for Trump as the ex-president looks to recruit minority voters ahead of the November election. At the same time, the former president traveled to Las Vegas for a rally where voters were spotted holding Latinos in front of Trump signs.

“It’s a small change in messaging because at this point in Biden’s America, all Americans are suffering the same thing: high inflation and rising prices,” campaign adviser Danielle Alvarez said in a call with reporters ahead of Trump’s remarks. She said this will help Trump gain support from the Hispanic community.

Several Latinos in Nevada told DailyMail they agree it feels like there is growing support for Trump in their community.

Although not included in the polls, Latinos in Florida helped re-elect Republican Governor Ron DeSantis during the 2022 midterm elections.

But while the polls showed Trump has support among 55 percent of Hispanic men, he is overall underwater in favorability among Latino voters, even more so than Biden. The bigger threat to margins is third-party voting.

“There are all these stories about how Trump is winning and the Latino community is moving towards him. “I think that’s less the case in our polling, and more so, at least among soft supporters, that Biden is underperforming and he’s losing support to third parties or to the undecided count,” Patel said.

But he cautioned that Democrats should still keep an eye on Trump’s gains among Latino men. Trump also fared better on handling the border in the polls, as securing the border ranked fourth among the most important issues for Latino voters.

Where Democrats may have a chance to bring Latino voters back into the fold by November is that while a larger percentage are leaning toward voting for Kennedy, he remains relatively unknown.

In the poll, fewer voters knew enough about him to say whether they had a favorable or unfavorable view despite the name Kennedy. It could give Democrats an opening to further define him as a candidate.

At the same time, abortion rights ranked third among Latino voters. Biden had a nearly 30-point lead over Trump when it came to who Latino voters thought would do better in this area.