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Sep 29, 2022 - Politics & Policy

Pew: Latinos split on race, social issues as abortion concerns surge

Russell Contreras
Latinos vote at a polling station in El Gallo Restaurant in 2016 in the Boyle Heights section of Los Angeles.

Latinos vote at a polling station in El Gallo Restaurant in 2016 in the Boyle Heights section of Los Angeles. Photo: David McNew/Getty Images

Social issues and views about discrimination divide Latinos based on party identification and country of origin, according to a new survey on Hispanics.

Driving the news: The Pew Research Center's latest National Survey of Latinos, released Thursday, shows wide polarization ahead of the 2022 midterms.

Why it matters: The 62.1 million Hispanics in the U.S. now account for 18.7% of the population, and among them are nearly 31 million registered voters.

The big picture: The economy is still a top worry among Latinos, though concerns over abortion restrictions have risen the most in the past few months.

  • 57% of Hispanic voters said the issue is very important, up from 42% in March.
  • 57% of all Hispanics also said abortion should be legal in at least some cases.

What we’re watching: About three in four Democrats or Democratic-leaning respondents said it’s a bigger problem for people not to see racial discrimination where it exists than to see discrimination where it doesn't exist.

  • But about three in five Republican or Republican-leaning respondents said the opposite: that it’s a bigger problem that people see racial discrimination where it does not exist.

Zoom in: Central Americans were far more likely (57%) than Cuban Americans (45%) to say they have experienced discrimination because of their race or ethnicity.

  • Cuban Americans (60%) were about twice as likely as Mexican Americans (30%) and Central Americans (32%) to say increasing U.S.-Mexico border security is a very important immigration policy goal.

What's next: Stay tuned next month for one more installment in our Axios-Ipsos Latino Poll index before the November election.

Methodology: The report is based on the responses of 3,029 U.S. Latino adults from Aug. 1-14, 2022. This includes 1,407 Hispanic adults on Pew Research Center's American Trends Panel (ATP) and 1,622 Hispanic adults on Ipsos' KnowledgePanel®.

  • The margin of sampling error is ±2.7 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.
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