With a record 32 million Hispanics expected to be eligible to vote in November, the Pew Research Center conducted a survey to find out where Latino voters stand on key issues. The poll reveals that Hispanics — including those who identify as or lean Republican — are considerably more liberal than American voters at large.
The December online survey of 3,030 Hispanic registered voters found that these voters overwhelmingly favor government intervention to address their concerns. A full 74 percent of them said that “government should do more to solve problems,” while just 22 percent affirmed that “government is doing too many things better left to businesses and individuals.” Among those identifying with or leaning toward the Democratic Party, 82 percent favored more government, as did just over half (51 percent) of self-described Republicans.
By contrast, in a September poll, 52 percent of all registered voters said government should be doing more, including 79 percent of Democrats and 22 percent of Republicans.
When it comes to specific issues, Hispanics again lean leftward.
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While 65 percent of registered voters told pollsters in May that they favored hiking the minimum wage to $15 an hour, 79 percent of Hispanic voters now say they want the same thing. Among Democrats, Hispanics are slightly less likely to favor a minimum-wage increase than the party as a whole (88 percent versus 90 percent, respectively). Among Republicans, Hispanic support for raising the minimum wage dwarfs that of GOP voters in general (62 percent versus 36 percent, respectively).
Then there’s the hotly contested issue of healthcare. “Hispanic voters generally believe the U.S. government should play a role in providing health care to Americans,” reports Pew. “About seven-in-ten (71%) say it is the federal government’s responsibility to make sure all Americans have health care coverage, including 38% who favor a national health insurance system and 32% who prefer a mix of private and government health care coverage. Around a quarter (28%) say it is not the government’s responsibility to make sure all Americans have health care coverage, though most in this group say they prefer to keep Medicare and Medicaid.”
Breaking it down by party, 84 percent of Hispanic Democrats agreed that the federal government should ensure everyone has health coverage, with about half favoring a national health-insurance program, while 51 percent of Hispanic Republicans took the opposite tack, most with the caveat that the smaller-scale socialism of Medicare and Medicaid be retained.
Meanwhile, 57 percent of U.S. registered voters, including 87 percent of Democrats and 24 percent of Republicans, said in September that Washington should be responsible for healthcare.
Hispanics also favor tougher gun laws by a margin of 68 percent to 24 percent. Four-in-five Hispanic Democrats and nearly half (44 percent) of Hispanic Republicans say gun laws should be stricter. (Pew notes that “the survey was conducted several months after a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, involving a suspect who said he targeted Mexicans.”) Among the general public, 59 percent of registered voters, including 89 percent of Democrats and 27 percent of Republicans, told Pew in September that gun laws should be tightened.
In short, Hispanics are much more likely to favor big government than Americans in general, and Hispanic Republicans tend to be significantly more liberal than their fellow GOP voters. And while it may be true that, as Politico observed, Hispanics “skew conservative on social issues, including abortion,” which is more likely to carry the day in November: “free” healthcare, which has a definite impact on one’s pocketbook, or cutting funding to Planned Parenthood, whose cost to the average taxpayer is minimal and unclear?
The good news, if any is to be found, is that Hispanics who are born in the United States tend to be less liberal than their forebears. On every question in the survey, U.S.-born Hispanics were significantly less disposed toward government intervention than Hispanics as a whole. Still, on all questions, more than half of U.S.-born Hispanics wanted more government.
“All things considered,” wrote Big League Politics’ Jose Nino, “continued mass migration will not only ensure eventual Democrat Party domination in the near future, but also a more leftist Republican opposition that now has a big government faction within its ranks.”
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