POLITICO Nightly: Latino support for Harris isn't where it needs to be

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris arrives at a rally on Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024, in Las Vegas. | Carolyn Kaster/AP

MARGIN OF ERROR — Tonight’s Univision town hall with Kamala Harris offers her a rare opportunity to speak directly to a nationwide audience of Latino voters and it couldn’t come at a better time for her campaign. It coincides with a spate of public polling that suggests if Democrats aren’t worried yet about her performance among Latino voters, they probably should be.

Nationally, polls show she’s winning Latinos by a wide margin, but underperforming Joe Biden’s 2020 level of support with them. That’s also true in an assortment of states, including the three that hold roughly half of the U.S. Latino population — California, Florida and Texas.

A newly released California poll has Harris winning Latinos by a 54-35 percent margin over Donald Trump — a far cry from 2020, when Biden won 75 percent of the California Latino vote, according to exit polling data . New Marist polls released today also have eye-opening results: Harris losing Latinos in Florida by 18 points (Biden won 53-46 among Florida Latinos in 2020, according to exit polls) and Harris with a 5-point advantage among Latinos in Texas (where Biden won Latinos by 17 points).

Exit polls aren’t the most precise instrument for measuring actual election results. But in California, for example, those numbers are fairly consistent with other analyses of the 2020 presidential election results. A 2021 report out of UCLA found that California voters in high density Latino precincts supported Biden with 79 percent of the vote — just a few points higher than the exits.

California, Florida and Texas aren’t battleground states, so Harris’ precise Latino margins don’t matter quite so much. (And Florida is something of an anomaly because of the high percentage of Cuban American voters in Miami-Dade County, among whom Trump has robust support). Where it will matter most is in swing states like Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, where Latinos will play a key role in determining the outcomes this year and where the Latino population primarily consists of more traditionally Democratic-leaning Latino groups like Puerto Rican, Dominican and Mexican Americans.

In some of those battleground states, there isn’t much public polling on Latino voting preferences — the sample sizes are too small to be reliable. But in Arizona and Nevada — the two swing states with the highest Latino populations — Suffolk University polling this week finds Harris still has a ways to go to match Biden’s performance.

It’s one reason the Harris campaign wanted to hold tonight’s town hall, the first of two that Spanish-language television giant Univision has scheduled, in Las Vegas.

As Adrian Carrasquillo reports in POLITICO today , Univision initially pitched Miami, where the network is headquartered, as the venue for both town halls. While the Trump campaign jumped at the idea — it welcomed the chance to appear in a city where he has considerable backing among Cuban Americans and other Latino groups like Colombian and Venezuelan Americans — the Harris campaign balked. It preferred Nevada, where Harris has campaigned aggressively and where Latinos tend to be Mexican American.

Trump’s Miami town hall, which was rescheduled due to Hurricane Milton, is now slated for Oct. 16.

With just 25 days left until Election Day, the hour is getting late. Harris has made undeniable progress with Latino voters since ascending to the top of the ticket, but she’s still not tracking with Biden’s 2020 pace in many places. With Latinos projected to account for roughly 15 percent of all eligible voters on Election Day — which would represent a new high — that could prove costly. While some Latino voters may return to the Democratic Party in the final weeks, it’s also possible that Trump’s increased support among Latino voters is a harbinger of a coming realignment.

In an election where the margins across the battleground state landscape are incredibly tight — just two percentage points separate Trump and Harris in all seven states — the answer to that question might make all the difference.

Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s authors at cmahtesian@politico.com and abianco@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @PoliticoCharlie and @_alibianco .

What'd I Miss?

— FEMA spent nearly half its disaster budget in just 8 days: Eight days into the fiscal year, the federal government has spent nearly half the disaster relief that Congress has allocated for the next 12 months . The rapid spending — which is likely to accelerate as aid flows to states pulverized by Hurricanes Helene and Milton — soon will force the Federal Emergency Management Agency to restrict spending unless Congress approves additional funding.

— Ethel Kennedy, social activist and wife of Robert F. Kennedy, has died: Ethel Kennedy, the wife of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy who raised their 11 children after he was assassinated and remained dedicated to social causes and the family’s legacy for decades thereafter, died today, her family said . She was 96. Kennedy had been hospitalized after suffering a stroke in her sleep on Oct. 3, her family said. The Kennedy matriarch, whose children were Kathleen, Joseph II, Robert Jr., David, Courtney, Michael, Kerry, Christopher, Max, Douglas and Rory, was one of the last remaining members of a generation that included President John F. Kennedy.

— Heavy-hit Florida may have avoided ‘worst case scenario’ from Hurricane Milton: Hurricane Milton ripped across Florida overnight, leaving behind massive damage, deaths from tornadoes and plunging millions into the dark, but one of the state’s heavily populated areas may have avoided the cataclysmic outcome that many were fearing. Milton weakened to a Category 3 storm before it made landfall on Wednesday night near Sarasota, and its path resulted in the vulnerable Tampa Bay region located north of the landfall being spared from a wave of water that had initially been predicted.

Nightly Road to 2024

WAR OF WORDS — The hosts of ABC’s “The View” clapped back at Donald Trump today, a day after the Republican nominee for president insulted co-hosts Sunny Hostin and Whoopi Goldberg, reports The Associated Press.

“I have a personal legal note,” said Hostin. “Donald Trump, I want to thank you for personally telling so many lies and committing so many alleged crimes and providing us with material on a daily basis. You help us do our jobs and I’m so appreciative.”

On Wednesday, Trump, campaigning in Pennsylvania, called Hostin, who is Black and Latina, “dumber than Kamala,” saying: “That is one dumb woman. Sorry. I’m sorry, women, she’s a dummy.”

COMPLICATED NARRATIVE — New York House Republicans have an easy target in criminally indicted Eric Adams. But criminally convicted Donald Trump stands in their way . The GOP’s messaging on the New York City mayor’s federal fraud and bribery charges has simply lumped him with other Democrats to allege a pattern of corruption within the party. And even those broad attacks have been rare as Republicans fight for six New York battleground seats that could determine partisan control over the House.

Further complicating the narrative, Adams recently welcomed Trump’s statement of support as a fellow target of politically motivated prosecution. The first-term mayor of the country’s biggest city has long been a political wildcard. National Democrats began distancing themselves from Adams when he fell out with President Joe Biden over the lack of federal support for migrants seeking shelter in the city.

TRUMP GRIFT!

TIRED OF WINNING — Since former President Donald J. Trump announced his 2024 candidacy, his campaign has promoted dozens of contests for supporters to win signed merchandise or “V.I.P.” trips to meet Mr. Trump. It has offered adherents myriad “exclusive” opportunities to join clubs to give counsel to Mr. Trump, and it has repeatedly claimed that Mr. Trump is personally reviewing lists of small donors. But most of the contests seem to have no winners , reports the New York Times, and the campaign did not confirm or provide evidence that the club members have had any opportunity to advise the former president or that Mr. Trump is paying any attention to small donor rosters.

AROUND THE WORLD

A person poses with Taiwan's national flag for a photo during National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Building in Taipei, Taiwan, Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024. | Chiang Ying-ying/AP

NATIONAL DAY NERVES — Taiwan celebrated its National Day holiday today against the background of threats from China , which claims the self-governing island republic as its own territory.

The celebration marks the establishment of the Republic of China, which overthrew the Qing Dynasty in 1911 and fled to Taiwan as Mao Zedong’s Communists swept to power on the mainland during a civil war in 1949. Taiwan was run under martial law until transitioning to full democracy in the 1980s and 1990s but maintains the original constitution brought from China and the ROC flag.

President Lai Ching-te took office in May, continuing the eight-year rule of the Democratic Progressive Party that rejects China’s demand that it recognize Taiwan is a part of China. The Nationalists adhere to a unification stance that recognizes both sides of the Taiwan Strait as a single nation.

Today’s commemorations included speeches by Lai and others, performances in front of the Presidential Office Building in Taipei, including an honor guard, military marching band and overflight by military aircraft, but no display of heavy military equipment as seen in years past.

TAX THE RICH — The new French government will set out plans for cutting public spending and hiking taxes on France’s businesses and wealthiest households in a budget designed to address concerns over France’s “colossal” debt.

Michel Barnier, the newly appointed prime minister, will publish draft legislation this evening — and POLITICO has exclusively seen a document setting out key details of his blueprint. The new administration intends to reinject €60.6 billion ($66.22 billion) into state coffers, mostly through spending reductions. Tax hikes on businesses and France’s wealthiest households will also be major parts of the package, according to the document.

Since the French president appointed him last month, Barnier has made getting France’s books into order a top priority, pledging action to address the country’s annual budget deficit and to comply with EU spending rules by 2029. France is facing a so-called excessive deficit procedure in Brussels and has until Oct. 31 to set out a credible plan for reducing its budget deficit for the coming years.

Nightly Number

2.4 percent

The pace of annual inflation, the slowest since early 2021 , signaling that the price spikes that have clouded President Joe Biden’s four-year term are over.

RADAR SWEEP

FIRE BURNING — On the day after Thanksgiving in 1864, a series of fires were set off across iconic New York City hotels and performance venues . The blazes were lit by anti-government groups that were aligned with the Confederacy. And while New York in the mid-1800s is today imagined as a union stronghold, in fact the city was awash with political violence and problems that stemmed from larger conflicts across the country. In the aftermath of the fires, a young John Wilkes Booth was inspired by the act, arguing with his brother that the perpetrators had every right to set the city on fire. In The Atavist, Betsy Golden Kellem tells the story of that day, its broader implications for the time and what it means in the context of American politics today.

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