Is Latin Americans’ support to Donald Trump growing?

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A survey published by the networks NPR and PBS, ensures that the support of the Latin American community to Donald Trump has increased, going from 31% to 50%. What are the bases for that conclusion?

The survey was conducted by the Marist Institute of Public Opinion of the United States and was conducted between January 10 and 13, with the objective of measuring the approval of President Trump, and the variation of this taking into account a previous survey, which was carried out between November 28 and December 4, 2018.

Leer en español: ¿Aumenta el apoyo de los latinos a Donald Trump?

The big surprise was the change in the results, because the support for Trump increased by 19%, even with the insistence of the US president to build a wall on the border with Mexico, the rejection and repression of the caravans of migrants from Central America. and the tightening of immigration measures, especially the so-called zero tolerance policy, which the Trump government has been implementing since the previous year.

The possible reasons for Trump's support

Since the end of 2018, President Donald Trump has maintained a dispute with the United States Congress -a Democrat majority- precisely to get the funding required for the construction of the wall approved there.

In that way, Trump has launched different strategies to obtain the support of the Democrats, such as the offer to extend the protection to migrants contemplated in the program of Deferred Action for Arrivals in Childhood (DACA) and the Temporary Protection Status (TPS), in exchange for obtaining the financing to build the wall.

That could explain why the support of Latinos to Trump has suddenly increased, considering that many of them are residents of the United States, and have some affinity with the president's policies and coincide with him in the rejection of the governments of countries like Venezuela and Cuba, where many of them come from.

Another factor that can explain this increase is security, the main axis in Trump's speech, which has also been used to justify the construction of the wall on the border with Mexico and the policy of zero tolerance. In this regard, the Republican political analyst, Gus Portela, in statements to Fox News, said that Hispanics "care about border security" and that the Democratic leaders have failed: "The Democrats have not kept their word".

The same Donald Trump became a self-recognition, noting that the increased support of Latinos is because they "know better the border issue than anyone, and want security, which can only be achieved with a wall".

Also read: In Mexico, migrants are also persecuted and mistreated

Figures that generate doubts

Beyond the result of the survey, there are aspects that generate doubts and concerns. According to Univision, of all the people consulted for the survey, only 153 were Hispanics, which suggests that the sample is not representative of Latin Americans in general and that, therefore, it can not be concluded that support for Trump has increased.

On the other hand, the questions were asked in English and the margin of error was approximately 9.9%, which means that Trump's approval may be lower. Univisión highlights the explanation that the director of the Marist Institute of Public Opinion, Lee Miringoff, gave on the methodology of the survey:

"This is not a survey of Hispanics, this is a survey of Americans, if not the methodology and the way they would have been different. The numbers suggest an increase, but we should expect more polls to have evidence that there is a major change. "

To this, we must add that, although the survey indicates that 50% of Latinos in the United States approve and support Trump's management, there is also 46% who disapprove.

LatinAmerican Post | Samuel Augusto Gallego Suárez

Translated from "¿Aumenta el apoyo de los latinos a Donald Trump?"