Clinton leads Trump with Latino voters 62-23 percent

WASHINGTON, May 20 (UPI) — A new Fox News poll shows Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton leading presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump among Latino voters 62-23 percent.

The Fox News Latino poll also shows 74 percent of those surveyed hold an unfavorable view of Trump, who has made his stance on illegal immigration a centerpiece of his campaign.

Clinton’s challenger, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, performs slightly better in the poll than Clinton in a hypothetical general election match-up with Trump. Just over 66 percent of Latinos chose Sanders over Trump.

While the poll shows Clinton with a wide lead over Trump in a general election, it is also a slight repudiation of her performance with Latinos thus far in the campaign. Despite Trump’s continued promises to deport the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States and build a wall on the Mexican border, Clinton is still running well shy of President Barack Obama’s share of the Latino vote four years ago.

Obama won 71 percent of the Hispanic vote in his race against Republican Mitt Romney in 2012.

The poll, when viewed against the landscape of the 2012 Latino vote, shows both candidates have room to improve, though both face challenges.

Trump presently is running 5 points behind where Romney ended the 2012 campaign.

Trump’s 23 percent support is almost the mirror image of his 74 percent unfavorable rating in the survey, suggesting he faces a skeptical group of voters as he seeks to improve.

Clinton faces her own unfavorable views, though they are not as high as Trump’s. Forty-one percent of Latinos hold an unfavorable opinion of her, suggesting she may also face skepticism in trying to win over the 14 percent share of Latino voters who said they would either back a third-party candidate, were still undecided or would not vote for either Clinton or Trump.

The poll surveyed 886 registered Latino voters in live interview via landline phones and cellphones from May 11-14. It has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.