Top election issues for Latino voters: Economy, health care, COVID-19
As the coronavirus continues its spread across the United States, strong majorities of Hispanic registered voters say the economy, health care and the COVID-19 outbreak are very important to their vote in the 2020 presidential election, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted July 27 to Aug. 2.
About eight-in-ten Latino registered voters and U.S. voters overall rate the economy as very important to their vote, the highest shares among the 12 issues included in this survey. But these groups differ on other issues. Higher shares of Latino voters than U.S. voters cite health care (76% vs. 68%), the coronavirus outbreak (72% vs. 62%) and racial and ethnic inequality (66% vs. 52%) as very important. These views come as Latinos have faced disproportionate economic and health effects from the coronavirus outbreak. The largest gap is on climate change, with 60% of Latinos and 42% of U.S. adults citing it as very important to their vote for president.
Notable differences exist by gender, and this is especially true for Hispanics on the issue of immigration. Among registered voters, more Hispanic women than Hispanic men rate immigration as very important to their vote for president (69% vs. 50%). By comparison, among U.S. voters overall, half or more of women (55%) and men (50%) say immigration is very important. Substantially more Hispanic women than Hispanic men rate economic inequality (59% vs. 45%) and abortion (48% vs. 36%) as very important to their vote for president, though these views largely mirror those of all U.S. voters.
Pew Research Center asked these questions on a recent survey to understand American voters’ attitudes toward the 2020 presidential election and campaign, and their views of the nation’s response to the coronavirus outbreak. For this analysis, we conducted an online survey of 11,001 U.S. adults, including 9,114 registered voters and 1,652 Hispanic registered voters, between July 27 and Aug. 2, 2020.
Everyone who took part is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology.
Here are the questions used for this report, along with responses, and its methodology.
A record 32 million Latinos are projected to be eligible to vote in November’s elections, exceeding the number of Black eligible voters for the first time. (Explore our interactive maps and tables to see Latino eligible voters by state and congressional district.)
A majority of Latinos say the nation compares poorly to other affluent countries in its response to the pandemic. More than two-thirds of Latino voters (68%) say the U.S. has been less effective than other wealthy countries in responding to the coronavirus outbreak, a higher share than among all U.S. voters (59%).
Hispanic voters have mixed views of how local and state elected officials have responded to COVID-19. More than half (54%) say local elected officials have done an excellent or good job responding to the coronavirus outbreak, and 46% say the same of state elected officials. By comparison, higher shares of all U.S. voters say the same of local (62%) and state (57%) elected officials. Hispanic voters broadly agree that hospitals and medical centers in their area are doing a good job (86%), compared with 92% of U.S. voters overall. Roughly a third (32%) of Hispanic voters give a positive rating to President Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus, while a slightly higher share of U.S. voters (38%) say the same.
Note: Here are the questions used for this report, along with responses, and its methodology.
