IS TRUMP SUPPORT SURGING AMONG LATINOS?

In a word, yes.

The just-released McLaughlin & Associates study shows Trump at a 50% approval rating among Latinos (or, if you wish, Hispanics).

But, you might say, McLaughlin & Associates is a conservative outfit and they’ve probably cooked the data to push up Trump’s numbers.

That is a very logical, very reasonable suspicion.  Except, according to Steve Cortes, writing for realclearpolitics.com:

This number matched the January Marist/NPR/PBS survey that shocked cynics with its own 50% approval finding.  Even if those polls are too aggressive, February’s Morning Consult/Politico poll showed Trump’s Hispanic approval vaulting to a still-impressive 45%.

While it is true that Cortes is a Trump partisan, it is also true that Marist and Morning Consult are nonpartisan organizations.  If they join McLaughlin & Associates in finding the same surge, it’s a pretty good bet that surge is for real.

But why?  Why would Latino voters be moving toward Donald Trump?  Isn’t he the guy who says we need a southern border wall to keep out drug dealers and criminals?  Isn’t that an affront to Latinos in general?

The answer for many within that community, I think, is that it is not an affront to Latinos in general, it is an affront to Latino drug dealers and criminals.

It seems evident that more and more Latino citizens see, and are reacting positively to, these two key issues:

1. During the Trump administration, Latino unemployment is at its all-time low.  That obviously means something within Latino communities.

2. The effects of drugs and criminality on those communities.

In that regard, this segment is pulled from my March 19th blog, titled “Are Latino Voters President Trump’s Secret Weapon?”:

If I were a Republican operative, this would be my message:

-Democrats support open borders with Mexico, which would mean a great many central and south American illegals will come into the country.

-As President Trump has pointed out, they will include members of drug cartels and organized gangs.

-Whose neighborhoods do you think those drug cartels and gangs will be operating from?  What do you think that will do to those neighborhoods?

-Whose children do you think they will be recruiting to join them?

-And what do you think they will do to parents who tell them to get lost?

Do you think that might resonate?  Do you think it might build support in the Latino community?

I know I do.

Those unemployment data are real.  And that reminder of what neighborhoods the drugs and criminality will find their way into, is every bit as true today as it was when I originally wrote it.

With Latino voters becoming more and more of a force in United States politics, these factors should – and better – scare the excrement out of Democrats who think their “open borders/dependency handouts” message is a big winner.  Maybe it will even cause them to rethink the way they address Latinos.

I wonder if they can.