Former President Donald Trump held a roundtable discussion with Latino leaders in Miami on Tuesday, just hours after a new poll revealed he is leading Vice President Kamala Harris by 11 points among this crucial voting bloc.
The event occurred at Trump National Doral Miami. It included prominent figures such as Florida GOP Representatives Maria Salazar and Carlos Gimenez, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, Florida Senator Rick Scott, and Hialeah Mayor Esteban Bovo.
During the roundtable, Trump criticised Harris, who was in Washington, D.C., and had no campaign events scheduled for the day. “She’s sleeping right now; she couldn’t go on the trail,” Trump remarked. “You’d think when you had 14 days left, you wouldn’t be sleeping.
She’s not doing anything today. I should take one of those – we’ve gone 52 days in a row.” He added, “And I’m going 14 more days, and we’re going to have a big victory party, hopefully.” Trump labelled Harris as “lazy” and referred to her as “a radical left lunatic.”
The Trump campaign emphasised the former president’s connection with the Latino community, stating, “The Latino community knows that President Donald J. Trump is the only candidate to bring prosperity back to America. That’s why they’ll turn out in record numbers on November 5th to vote for him to be the 47th President of the United States.”
The roundtable follows a new USA Today/Suffolk University poll showing Trump leading Harris by 11 percentage points among Latino voters. While the national figures indicate Harris at 45% and Trump at 44%, Latino voter support has shifted in Trump’s favour, with 49% backing him compared to 38% for Harris.
The poll also indicated that Black voters prefer Harris by 72% to 17%. However, this 55-point advantage is significantly lower than the traditional support Democrats have enjoyed in past elections. In the 2020 race, President Biden secured overwhelming support from Black and Latino voters, with 92% of Black and 59% of Latino voters backing him, according to a Pew Research Center analysis.
Trump’s campaign strategy has focused on economic issues and crime, allowing him to make significant inroads among Latino and Black voters in the 2024 race.
In response to the poll, Harris unveiled her plan to “deliver real changes for Latino men and their families.” Her initiatives include helping them secure jobs, providing no-interest loans and deferred loan repayments for small businesses, offering entirely forgivable loans of up to $20,000, providing $25,000 in down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers, expanding the child tax credit, and covering long-term home care costs through Medicare.
