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The Latino vote will have a significant weight in these 2024 presidential elections in the United States. In this context, a recent survey revealed that the majority of this segment of the population shows a preference for Joe Biden. However, when including a third optiona considerable portion of those consulted redirect their support to this new alternative, which indirectly benefits donald trump.
The organization Voto Latino (VL), with the help of the consulting firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner (GQR), conducted the largest survey among Latinos from undecided states ahead of the 2024 elections. The results showed that, in a hand-in-hand definition between the current president and his Republican opponent, the 59% of the 2000 interviewed would vote for BidenMeanwhile he 39% remaining would do it for trump. These are similar figures to those of the last election in 2020, in which Biden won against Trump.
However, everything changes when the variable of third party candidates is incorporated: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cornel West and Jill Stein. There, although the support for Trump decreases to 34%, The drop in the case of Biden is much more noticeable: up to 47%. That means that migration would occur mainly from voters with Democratic leanings to independent options.
Among these possible third candidates, the one who would receive the greatest number of votes, according to the survey, is Kennedy Jr.which appears with 12%. For its part, Stein gets 2%while West gathers 3%. “Overall, 35% have a ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ favorable opinion of Kennedy, compared to 34% of Trump and 44% of Biden,” the report added.
Maria Theresa Kumar, co-founder and president of VL, said: “We kept hearing the narrative that Latinos were leaving the Democratic Party and going to Trump. And that just didn’t make any sense, so we dug deeper.” In that sense, they observed that, although these voters support Biden’s policies, they do not support his management of the economy. But that does not necessarily mean a “turn to the right”.
“As a result, we found that Not only did people desert and go to a third partywith Robert F. Kennedy Jr. being the main one, but they were “Latin women who did it”commented Kumar, who detailed that, among those who said they supported a third party, 62% were female.
The president of VL then referred to the “apparent lack of knowledge of their political positions and the urgency with which campaigns should begin communicating Kennedy’s extreme views and lack of a cohesive platform.” Along these lines, Kumar warned that “No one really knows what Kennedy represents.” and pointed out that he is an anti-vaccine and that “he has no answer” when asked about the economy. “It is time for the campaigns to define Kennedy and show that He is also a right-wing extremist along the lines of Trump.”, he stated.
This year, some 36.2 million Latinos will be eligible to vote, which means a significant increase compared to 32.3 million in 2020, when Biden obtained 59% of the votes of people of this ancestry. In these 2024 presidential elections, the Latino vote will represent almost 15% of the total voter turnout, according to a recent report from the Pew Research Center, so the orientation of their vote will be key in defining who will occupy the Oval Office chair. starting January 20, 2025.
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