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While Latino voters generally have a negative view of socialism, a new NBC News/Telemundo poll shows their views on the subject vary by ideology, ancestry and more.
A plurality of registered Latino voters — 41% — voice negative views of socialism, while just 23% view it positively. But the economic system enjoys more support among younger and more liberal Latino voters.
- Latino voters 18-39: 27% positive, 37% negative (-10)
- Latino voters 40+: 19% positive, 44% negative (-25)
- Liberal Latino voters: 39% positive, 26% negative (+13)
- Moderate Latino voters: 19% positive, 35% negative (-16)
- Conservative Latino voters: 8% positive, 64% negative (-56)
This split is also clear among Democratic presidential primary voters. Four in 10 voters who supported progressives such as Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., or Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., in 2020 have positive views of socialism, while 13% hold negative views (+27). But 27% percent of voters who backed President Joe Biden in the primary view socialism positively, while 40% view it negatively (-13).
While opinions of socialism are nuanced within the Latino electorate, the overall negative feelings around the economic system could help explain why Republicans found some success among Latino voters in 2020.
A 2021 report from the Democratic firm Equis Research found that four in 10 Latinos who voted in 2020 were concerned that Democrats were embracing socialism.
The NBC News/Telemundo poll finds concerns over socialism were more pronounced in two states where Republicans made gains among Latino voters in 2020: Texas and Florida.
Latino voters in those two states have more negative views of socialism, by margins of minus-26 points in Florida and minus-27 points in Texas, compared to their counterparts in California, where Latino voters give socialism a net-negative rating of 17 percentage points.
In Florida, Cuban voters are especially influential, and voters of Cuban ancestry rate socialism much more negatively than voters of Mexican, Central American or Puerto Rican descent. A majority of Cuban voters — 60% — have negative views of socialism, while 12% hold positive views.
The NBC News/Telemundo poll was conducted Sept. 17-26 of 1,000 Latino registered voters, 75% of whom took the survey in English and 25% who took it in Spanish.
Respondents were contacted via landline, cell phone and text message. And the poll has an overall margin of error of plus-minus 3.1 percentage points.
