Donald Trump Faces Backlash From Latino Voters Amid Polling Surge

The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the country’s oldest and largest Latino civil rights organization, said it condemns “xenophobic and inflammatory comments” former President Donald Trump made about immigration during Tuesday’s debate against Vice President Kamala Harris.

“His rhetoric on immigration not only misrepresents the facts but also promotes fear and division, unfairly targeting immigrant communities, particularly Latinos,” the union said in a press release.

LULAC, which endorsed Harris on Monday, cited Trump’s claim during the debate that immigrants are eating people’s pets in American towns as one of the most “egregious examples.”

“This statement has no foundation in truth. Not only is it completely baseless, but it also serves as a reprehensible attempt to dehumanize immigrants by spreading ridiculous and harmful lies,” the union said.

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On the other hand, LULAC said it is “encouraged” by Harris’ “commitment to delivering bipartisan immigration reform in Congress.”

“We urge Vice President Harris to maintain her commitment to the critical goal of creating a more fair and humanitarian immigration system,” LULAC stated.

Newsweek reached out to the Trump and Harris campaigns and LULAC via email for comment on Wednesday afternoon.

The new NPR/PBS News/Marist poll released hours before the candidates faced off in their first presidential debate showed that Trump has overtaken Harris among Latino voters, 51 percent to 47 percent. This marks a 19-point shift from August when Harris led the former president by 15 points in the same voting group.

Vianca Rodriguez, the RNC/Trump campaign Hispanic Outreach & Communications Deputy Director, previously told Newsweek that the numbers showed Latino voters were “tired of Kamala’s pandering.” She referred to her as “Que Mala,” a play on the Spanish wording for “how bad.”

“Her ‘honeymoon’ period is over. President Donald Trump has delivered for Latinos with low unemployment rates, record low poverty, and record high homeownership,” Rodriguez said. “As he prepares for voters to return him to the White House, it’s clear that he’ll deliver once again.”

Former President Donald Trump at his debate against Vice President Kamala Harris (not pictured) on September 10. Win McNamee/Getty Images© Win McNamee/Getty Images

In an Electoral College race that’s shaping up to be razor thin, both candidates will look to appeal to Latino voters in key swing states, including Arizona.

Latinos make up 25 percent of Arizona’s eligible voters. In 2020, around 33 percent of Latino voters voted for Trump in Arizona, up from 30 percent in 2016, according to the Americas Society/Council of the Americas (ASCOA). Nationally, 38 percent of Latinos supported Trump in 2020, up from 28 percent in 2016, according to the Pew Research Center.

Trump visits Arizona on Thursday, and FiveThirtyEight’s poll tracker shows that he is 0.8 points ahead of Harris in the battleground state, on 46.2 percent to the vice president’s 45.5 percent.

Meanwhile, RealClearPolitics’ poll tracker shows he is ahead by a wider margin of 1.6 points in a head-to-head matchup, while he is ahead by 1.9 points, according to pollster Nate Silver’s forecast.

On Monday, LULAC endorsed Harris, the first time in the group’s nearly 100-year history that it has formally backed a presidential candidate.

“We really felt that as an organization that stands for the civil rights for Latinos, that we had to take a position,” LULAC CEO Juan Proaño told Newsweek. “At the end of the day, we were quite frankly moved from what we saw in the different campaigns…It was this particular person, this particular campaign, this particular risk.”

“We would hate to be on the sidelines in an election like this,” he added.

The nonprofit, which boasts some 140,000 members nationwide, made its endorsement through its new political action committee, LULAC Adelante PAC.

Going forward, LULAC will use its PAC to endorse candidates on both sides “who support our families, our entrepreneurs, our college students with policies that can make a difference,” Garcia said. LULAC is considered to be among the more conservative of the major civil-rights groups in the U.S.

Proaño said LULAC made its decision by looking at proposed data on hate crimes and discrimination, Project 2025 and immigration policies.

“I was deathly afraid when I tuned in on that Tuesday to the RNC, and they had mass deportation signs,” Proaño said, adding that a lot of effort had to go into that with the creation, printing and placement so it’s “not something that just happens overnight.”