Mixed results for the Donald in 2 new polls.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: Donald Trump has been inexplicably adamant that his onslaught of controversial comments about illegal Mexican immigrants will not be a detriment with Hispanic voters, even pointing to a poll showing he was the top choice of Hispanics in Nevada — a poll that included the responses of only a few dozen Hispanic Republicans, according to the Washington Post.
In order to better gauge the situation, NBC News and the Wall Street Journal released a poll on Sunday that included a large number of Hispanic voters — 250 in total — in contrast to the Nevada poll so often cited by Trump.
Unsurprisingly, the expanded survey found that the majority of the demographic finds Trump repugnant.
While the frontrunner for the Republican presidential candidacy has claimed that Latino voters “love” and support him, according to NBC News, the newly released figures state otherwise. Three-quarters saw Trump in a negative light, with more than 60 percent of them viewing him very negatively.
Asked to assess the now-infamous line from Trump’s campaign announcement when he stated, “Mexico is sending people that have lots of problems … They are bringing drugs. They are bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people,” 55 percent of Latinos said that the remarks were “insulting and racist and have no place in a campaign for president.”
Another 29 percent said that “Trump should have been more careful with the language he used, but he is raising an important issue.” Fourteen percent said that “Trump had the guts to say exactly what was on his mind about an important problem we need to deal with.”
An overwhelming majority of those polled also believes that Trump is doing damage to the GOP’s image, with 69 percent of respondents stating as much, while only 12 percent said he is helping it.
A separate poll released by Monmouth University on Monday revealed that few GOP voters like the format of the “Top 10†presidential debate that Fox News is planning for Thursday.
The poll also found Donald Trump widening his national lead to a more than 2-to-1 advantage over his nearest rivals with the support of 26 percent of GOP voters. Meanwhile, former Florida governor Jeb Bush gleaned 12 percent and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker pulled in 11 percent support.
Only 23 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning voters say they like the network’s selection method, which has drawn criticism from many candidates, reported USA Today. They’d rather see back-to-back debates with the field randomly split in half, or putting all 17 candidates on the same stage, the poll found.
“I suppose Fox hoped that a top tier would emerge by the time the first debate rolled around. But based on current polling, there’s no good rationale for arbitrarily selecting a top ten,†said Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray.