On Thursday morning, the National Institute for Latino Policy (NiLP) released the results of an online March survey of Latino opinion leaders and their attitudes towards President Donald Trump. The survey, which NiLP says “is not based on a scientific sample, making our findings only suggestive of broader trends and attitudes,” is intended “to stimulate discussion and debate on critical issues facing the Latino community by providing some insights into the thinking of a broad range of engaged Latino leaders.”
Nonetheless, the survey did collect responses from 403 Latino opinion leaders to questions about Trump, national policies and even if Tom Perez’s recent election to head up the DNC will benefit Latinos.
Here are a few of the findings from the survey:
- Virtually all the opinion leaders felt that Trump is not responsive to the needs of the Latino community.
- However, when the survey took into account the political leanings of opinion leaders, “64 percent of those identifying as conservative felt [Trump] would bring the right kind of change, those identifying a moderate, liberal and progressive overwhelmingly (81-95 percent) feel that he will bring about the wrong kind of change.”
- “Two issues arose as top priorities for the Latino opinion leaders. For Mexicans (36 percent) and Other Latinos (35 percent) it was immigration; for Puerto Ricans (28 percent) it was jobs and economic growth.”
- “More than two-thirds of the Latino opinion leaders support the deportation of those undocumented persons who have committed serious crimes, while few (8-18 percent) believe that no one should be deported.”
- “Large percentages of the Latino opinion leaders feel that their elected officials need to stand up to the administration: 87 percent of the Mexican, 80 percent of the Puerto Rican and 82 percent of the Other Latino opinion leaders felt this way.”
- “Despite [Tom] Perez being the first Latino to lead the DNC, only about a third of the Latino opinion leaders felt he would make the party more responsive to Latinos: Mexican (32 percent), Puerto Rican (33 percent) and Other Latino (31 percent) opinion leaders felt this way.”
The complete report, written by NiLP’s Angelo Falcón, is available below: