Trump courts Hispanic voters with blue-state rally

(TNND) — With less than a week to go before Election Day, former President Donald Trump held a rally in the blue state of New Mexico in an effort to court Hispanic voters.

Trump, who also made stops Thursday in Nevada and Arizona, didn’t try and hide his intentions to woo Hispanic voters with the event in Albuquerque.

“Look, I, don't make me waste a whole damn half a day here. OK? Look, I came here, you know we could be nice to each other or we can talk turkey. Let's talk turkey. OK? First of all, Hispanics love Trump. They do. True. I like them. They're smart. They're a lot smarter than the person running for president on the Democrat side. ... So, I'm here for one simple reason. I like you very much, and it's good for my credentials with the Hispanic or Latino community,” Trump told his supporters.

Two political experts questioned if that time in New Mexico was well spent for Trump’s camp, given the election is so close.

There are just seven swing states that are likely to determine the outcome of the election, and New Mexico is not one of them.

“Why spend time in a blue state like New Mexico?” said Ernesto Sagás, an expert in Latinx politics who teaches at Colorado State University. “What I get from my angle is that there's some sense of desperation inside the campaign.”

Trump's support among the Latino community in polls has been mixed, but Latino voters have generally supported Vice President Kamala Harris more.

The Pew Research Center found 39% of Latino registered voters supported Trump.

A poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research showed Harris with a 10-point favorability advantage.

On the flip side, a USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll found Trump with 49% Latino voter support compared to 38% for Harris. USA Today noted that its poll contained a small Latino sample and thus a large margin of error.

Todd Belt, the Political Management program director at George Washington University, said the Cooperative Election Study, a robust academic study that came out a couple of days ago, showed Harris with 58% of the Hispanic vote. And Belt said Harris was doing slightly better among Hispanic voters in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania.

“We know that this is going to be a game decided by inches, and every vote's going to matter,” Belt said. “And this could be impactful.”

Both Sagás and Belt said Trump’s New Mexico stop signals some concern within his camp that he could be losing some Latino support in the aftermath of comedian Tony Hinchcliffe calling Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean" during Trump’s big rally last weekend at Madison Square Garden.

Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny endorsed Harris after the comedian's comments at Trump’s rally.

Puerto Rican reggaeton singer Nicky Jam pulled his endorsement of Trump.

And Jennifer Lopez endorsed Harris at one of her rallies Thursday.

Sagás and Belt both said the Latino vote is not monolithic.

“The people who are voting who are Latino in New York are not the same people who are voting down in the Rio Grande Valley,” Belt said.

But he said Trump’s efforts Thursday to court Latino voters in the crucial final days of the campaign is “not nothing.”

Belt said the backlash from the comedian’s Puerto Rico “garbage” comment could affect the margins of the vote, which could matter in a down-to-the-wire race.

“He's obviously worried,” Belt said. “That's why he's in New Mexico.”

Sagás said the New Mexico stop was part of “a non-apology apology tour in a safe space.”

Sagás said Trump was doing pretty well with younger Hispanic or Latinx men by appealing to their concerns about the economy.

And he said the Trump camp probably doesn’t want to see any of that support slip away.

Latino voters should be Harris’ “demographic to lose,” Sagás said.

But he said Harris, like President Joe Biden before, has had a hard time with messaging about the health of the economy.

The economy is doing better by the numbers than most Americans think.

The gross domestic product, a broad measure of the U.S. economy, grew at an annual rate of 2.8% in the most recent quarter.

Colorado State University economist Stephan Weiler said 2.8% annual growth is in line with long-run economic expansion that shouldn’t invite inflation.

“The stove is turned up, but it's not over-boiling,” he said Wednesday.

Inflation has cooled. The Federal Reserve has started cutting interest rates. The jobs market has gotten softer, but American employers have continued to add to their payrolls. The unemployment rate is still at a healthy 4.1%. And wages are now rising faster than inflation.

However, just 38% of Americans think we have a good economy, according to an AP-NORC poll.

And there are big partisan gaps in perception.

That survey found that 85% of Republicans view the economy as doing poorly, while 61% of Democrats view the economy as doing well.

Independents were more in line with Republicans on the issue, with 72% saying they think the economy is bad.

“The No. 1 issue for Latino voters, like everybody else, is the economy,” Belt said.

The Trump campaign's rally announcement forAlbuquerque indeed focused on economic concerns.

"New Mexico voters know their wallets will hurt even more under four more years of Kamala Harris," part of the announcement read.

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Both Belt and Sagás said economic concerns have been key to Latino support for Trump, even as the former president campaigns on hard-line immigration policies and promises of mass deportation.

Sagás said Trump has a “charismatic appeal” for some Latino voters, including folks very removed from the immigration experience, who admire his wealth and desire for assimilation into American society.

“This guy should not be that popular with any Latino demographic or any Hispanic demographic, but somehow he still is,” Sagás said.