President Donald J. Trump, joined by Vice President Mike Pence and Chief of Staff General John Kelly, talks via teleconference with FEMA officials regarding Hurricane Florence in the Oval Office | September 10, 2018 (Public Domain)
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Less than two months before Latino voters head to the polls for the 2018 midterm elections, the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund and Latino Decisions released the results of the third wave of its ten-week national tracking poll of Latino registered voters.
Results from the second week of the NALEO Educational Fund/Latino Decisions Weekly Political Tracking Poll offer exclusive insights into the Latino electorate this year, including opinions on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s criminal investigation, Presidential and Congressional favorability, political party evaluations, issue priorities, and more. Each week a fresh sample of 250 registered voters will be added and combined with the previous 250 interviews to create a rolling average. This week’s poll was conducted by Latino Decisions from September 8-17, 2018 (with a margin of error of 4.4 percent).
“Many Latino voters are monitoring developments around the investigation into possible cooperation with the Russian government in Election 2016 closely,” stated Arturo Vargas, NALEO Educational Fund chief executive officer. “While more than a quarter of Latino voters say they have not heard enough about the investigation to determine its fairness, an overwhelming majority want President Trump to cooperate fully with Special Counsel Robert Mueller.”
“Latino voters view the Mueller investigation as important and fair to our democracy, and oppose any efforts by President Trump to interfere or derail the investigation,” said Matt Barreto, co-founder of Latino Decisions and Professor at UCLA. “To the contrary, Latinos expect Trump to cooperate fully and even be interviewed by Mr. Mueller. The special counsel should always be completely independent and be allowed to run its full course.”
Key findings include:
- Latino voters think President Trump should step down if evidence shows he cooperated with Russian government during Election 2016. More than three-quarters of Latino registered voters believe President Trump should step down if the Mueller investigation finds evidence that he or his campaign team directly cooperated with Russian officials to influence the 2016 election.
- Views on Special Counsel and fairness of investigation are mixed. Less than half (49 percent) of Latino voters think that Mueller’s criminal investigation into any links or coordination between President Trump and the Russian government is fair, with a quarter of Latinos reporting that it is not fair (25 percent) or that they are unsure (26 percent). Results show 46 percent of Latino voters have a favorable view of Mueller, compared with 37 percent who see him unfavorably.
- Despite some concerns over investigation, support for President Trump to be interviewed by Mueller is high. More than 80 percent of Latino voters think the President should cooperate with the Mueller investigation by volunteering to be interviewed by the Special Counsel.
- Majority of Latino voters think the President has tried to interfere with the criminal investigation. Results show that 59 percent of Latino registered voters believe that President Trump has tried to interfere with Mueller’s investigation in a way that amounts to obstruction of justice.
- President Trump favorability ratings remain low. The third wave of the poll results reveals that the President’s favorability ratings have remained consistently low, with only 23 percent of Latino voters having a favorable view of him.
As we near Election 2018, NALEO Educational Fund will continue its efforts to ensure that Latino voters have the information necessary to make their voices heard at the ballot box. These efforts include operating our toll-free bilingual hotline 1-888-VE-Y-VOTA (1-888-839-8682) that provides Latino voters with information on every aspect of the electoral process, from registering to vote, to voter ID requirements, to finding their polling place. On Election Day, the hotline will be connected to the Election Protection efforts and 1-866-OUR-VOTE, offering Latino voters nationwide a bilingual resource to get assistance and report any problems they may experience at the polls.
To view the methodology and full toplines for week three of the ten-week tracking poll, see below:
About NALEO Educational Fund
NALEO Educational Fund is the nation’s leading non-partisan, non-profit organization that facilitates the full participation of Latinos in the American political process, from citizenship to public service.
About Latino Decisions
Latino Decisions is the nation’s leading polling and research firm on Latino Americans, being called the “gold-standard in Latino American polling” by Time Magazine, and has implemented its weekly political tracking poll of Latino voters every cycle since 2010.
