Donald Trump won a whopping 44 percent of Hispanic voters in the Republican Party’s Nevada Caucus Tuesday night, a surprising share for a man who has made his campaign about building a great big border wall and deporting millions of immigrants living in the country illegally.
According to an entrance poll chart from ABC News, Trump did better among Latino voters than Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) combined.
Rubio and Cruz, both candidates who have made their parents’ immigration stories from Cuba central to their campaigns attracted 29 percent and 18 percent of the Latino vote, respectively.
A Fox News entrance poll also showed Trump performing well. The Fox poll also showed that just about 8 percent of GOP caucusgoers in Nevada self-identified as Hispanic.
On Fox News, Wednesday morning, Rubio was asked to comment on why he thought Trump had won with Hispanic voters. The Fox News host flashed Rubio a graphic showing Trump’s domination among Latino voters.
“I know that’s an interesting graphic … There were like less than seven or eight percent of the total thing. The margin of error is huge. … And that’s self-identified by the way. I’m not saying it isn’t true — it could be,” Rubio said.
Then, Rubio said that the numbers proved that Latino voters have a wide range of issues that attract them to a candidate.
” I’ve always said this repeatedly: Americans of Hispanic descent are voters. They care about the future of our country. They care about everything else people care about. They care about jobs. They care about terrorism. They’re impacted by illegal immigration negatively in communities that are overrun by that,” Rubio said. “I’ve always said that about Americans of Hispanic descent. It’s the press that tried to categorize people by race and ethnicity, but if you’re an American of Hispanic descent, you’re paying the same tax rate, your kids are going to the same school, and you’re worried about terrorists like everybody else.”
Trump’s performance could be an indicator of things to come as Republicans head to states in upcoming weeks with larger Latino populations from Texas to Florida, where both Cruz and Rubio are hoping to win at home.
