Hillary Clinton widens big lead with Hispanic voters: poll

Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton widened her lead over her Republican rival Donald Trump among Hispanic voters in the presidential race, according to a new national survey of registered voters.

Mrs. Clinton and her running mate, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, enjoyed an overwhelming 46-point lead over Mr. Trump’s ticket with Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, 66 percent to 20 percent, said a Fox News Latino poll released Thursday.

That’s a 7-point bump for Mrs. Clinton since the same poll in May, when Mrs. Clinton had a 39-point advantage with Hispanic voters.

The Hispanic vote is key to Mrs. Clinton’s electoral strategy of assembling a coalition of young voters, minorities and women. Hispanics are the fastest-growing minority and provided heavy support that helped secure President Obama’s 2012 win over Republican Mitt Romney.

The Republican Party strategized to build support among Hispanics after the 2012 defeat but the immigration issue has continued to alienate those voters from the GOP.

In a three-way race that included Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson and his running mate, Bill Weld, 16 percent of Hispanics picked the third party candidates and 17 percent backed the Trump ticket. Mrs. Clinton’s share of the vote jumped to 59 percent, according to the poll.

Hispanic voters in the poll overwhelmingly sided with Mrs. Clinton on immigration issues, which Mr. Trump has made a cornerstone of his campaign with get-tough policies. Hispanic voters said that Mrs. Clinton was better suited to improve the U.S. immigration system by a 52-point margin, 71 percent to 19 percent.

These voters also backed the former secretary of state by wide margins on representing their views (72 percent to 14 percent), on education (73 percent to 19 percent), foreign policy (70 to 21 percent), health care (69 to 22 percent) and the economy (61 to 31 percent).

“The results are not that surprising given the reaction of Latinos to some of Trump’s proposals,” Alfonso Aguilar, the executive director of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, told Fox News Latino.