A new April online mobile survey of more than 8,000 U.S. Latinos conducted in Spanish by Florida International University’s Steven J. Green School of International & Public Affairs and mobile Hispanic advertising company Adsmovil reported that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has a commanding 50-point lead over Republican candidate Donald Trump. According to the survey, which ran from April 11-15, 62% of Latinos chose Clinton, with only 12% choosing Trump and 26% preferring another candidate.
The survey also broke down the data based on gender, age and educational levels. Despite Clinton’s overall popularity with Latinos, the candidate’s numbers barely beat out “Other” with younger Latino voters.
This week, Latino USA explored some of the reasons why this Latino generation gap exists.
Nonetheless, all the findings in this latest online mobile survey indicate that Clinton’s Latino support over Trump is strong.
When survey organizers ran a similar survey from April 18–22 and got a response from 7,714 Latino voters, Clinton’s support went from 63% to 65%. Trump stayed at about 12%, while “Other” dipped to 23%.
In March, Latino USA spoke with FIU Professor Eduardo A. Gamarra about these online mobile surveys and their methodology. At the time, Gamarra was sharing the results of a online survey that had asked about 9,000 Latino voters in Spanish their preference in a head-to-head election between Clinton and Trump. That poll showed Clinton with a 60-point lead, although respondents were only given two choices, unlike the three choices of the April survey. Here is what Gamarra said then about that March poll and its findings:
“What we found about our survey is that results actually paralleled the results’ average of all other polls,” Gamarra said.
Gamarra also noted that even though the FIU survey is not a “probabilistic poll” like Gallup, this new type of survey does add value informing the Latino community, especially since the number of polling organizations that focus on the Latino electorate is very small.
“Probabilistic polls assume that every Latino in the United States would have an equal chance of being polled. This is simply not the case here with this survey,” Gamarra said. “We knew that going in that this was not probabilistic. Probabilistic polls are very difficult to make these days because of the constraints around land lines and other factors.”
“What we are saying is that we have a database that belongs to Adsmovil, which we are polling,” Gamarra continued. “Everyone in that database has an equal chance of being polled. But we are not claiming to speak for all Latinos. We are not in that range. But what we are saying, and this is the important part—because we are getting such large numbers, about 10,000 responses, we are compensating for the fact that this survey is non-probabilistic by getting the huge numbers that we are getting.”
Having such numbers, Gamarra explained, gave his group’s efforts “confidence in the results” of the survey.
Adsmovil shared the following toplines of the April with Latino USA. The survey also asked participants what where the most important issues facing Latinos in the U.S. right now. According to the results, immigration and the economy topped the list.
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