Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh leaves his home September 19, 2018 in Chevy Chase, Maryland. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
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 fourth wave of its ten-week tracking poll of Latino registered voters.
Results from the fourth week of the NALEO Educational Fund/Latino Decisions Weekly Political Tracking Poll offer exclusive insights into the Latino electorate this year, including views on U.S. Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh, 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 12 – 24, 2018 (with a margin of error of 4.4 percent).
“Latino voters continue to monitor issues closely as Election 2018 approaches, such as the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court,” stated Arturo Vargas, NALEO Educational Fund chief executive officer. “As the process has continued, an overwhelming majority of the Latino electorate want him to withdraw from the nomination process and believe that a new nominee should not be selected until after the election.”
“As Latino voters have learned more about Brett Kavanaugh they have become increasing opposed to his nomination,” said Matt Barreto, co-founder of Latino Decisions and Professor at UCLA. “The opposition stems from the lack of transparency in releasing documents as well as the allegations of sexual assault. There is now clear evidence that a large majority of Latinos oppose Kavanaugh and the opposition is growing. Further, data now suggests there are negative spillover effects for the Republican Party overall.”
Key findings include:
- Latino voters believe Kavanaugh should withdraw from the nomination process. Nearly 75 percent of Latino registered voters believe that U.S. Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh should withdraw from consideration as a Supreme Court Justice.
- Favorability has declined as Latino voters learn more about Kavanaugh. The more Latino voters learn about Kavanaugh’s background, the more they oppose his nomination (49 percent now compared to 38 percent in week three).
- There is significant support for having the President wait until after the election to forward a new nominee should Kavanaugh withdraw. More than half (64 percent) of the Latino electorate would want President Trump to wait until after the November 2018 election before nominating a new nominee for Supreme Court Justice.
- Both parties need to do a better job explaining their agenda and policy priorities. There is still an information void when it comes to the parties and Latino voters. Large percentages of Latino voters do not feel that the two parties have done a good enough job explaining what they stand for and why they should support them (42 percent for Democrats; 54 percent for Republicans).
- Latino voters need to be engaged. The Latino electorate is still being ignored, with 60 percent of Latino voters continuing to report that they have not been contacted by a candidate, campaign or party. Among Latino voters who say they have been contacted by a party, 60 percent say it was by Democrats, while 32 percent it was by Republicans. Both parties have a lot of work to do in the lead up to Election Day.
- President Trump favorability ratings remain low. The fourth wave of the poll results reveals that the President’s favorability ratings have remained consistently low, with only 25 percent of Latino voters having a favorable view of him.
As we near the 2018 Election, 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 four of the ten-week tracking poll, see below:
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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.
