From Erik Wemple’s “Top Beltway journalists cling to heinous assertion of Trump-Clinton false equivalence” at The Washington Post:

When top Beltway journalists Carol Lee of the Wall Street Journal and Jeff Mason of Reuters made the case in a USA Today op-ed that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump posed similar threats to a free and independent press, they weren’t suffering a momentary lapse of judgment. Or writing imprecisely in a rush to meet a deadline. Or some other such innocent explanation.

They meant it.

In a statement to the Huffington Post’s Michael Calderone, Lee and Mason — the outgoing and incoming presidents, respectively, of the White House Correspondents’ Association — explain what they were explaining:

“The White House Correspondents’ Association defends the First Amendment in the context of the presidency, and, as such, speaks up when a presumptive nominee from either party falls short. Our op-ed laid out legitimate and different concerns that we have about each candidate with regard to the press. We did not render a verdict on which candidate poses more of a problem; people can draw their own conclusions about that. To suggest that we were somehow presenting a “false equivalency” misses our point.

This is not about comparing one candidate with the other; it is about scrutinizing how the candidates would conduct themselves in the White House in relation to the press. We were clear in our op-ed about what concerns we have with Hillary Clinton and with Donald Trump on that specific point. We will advocate strongly for the winner in November to respect a free press based on the principles of the First Amendment, not on a scale shaped by his or her rival.”

That statement lacks one thing, which is the ring of truth.

The offending USA Today op-ed by Lee and Mason actually compared “one candidate with the other”; it actually presented “false equivalency”; it actually blurred and steamrolled the significant differences between the candidates. It’s all in these two paragraphs:

The public’s right to know is infringed if certain reporters are banned from a candidate’s events because the candidate doesn’t like a story they have written or broadcast, as Donald Trump has done.

Similarly, refusing to regularly answer questions from reporters in a press conference, as Hillary Clinton has, deprives the American people of hearing from their potential commander-in-chief in a format that is critical to ensuring he or she is accountable for policy positions and official acts.

Bolding added to highlight the smoking gun of false equivalency: that the anti-media policies of these two candidates are similar. The headline helps level the playing field, too: “Trump, Clinton both threaten free press.” As does the piece’s kicker: “Both Clinton and Trump can do better.”

The beauty of journalism is that once you’ve written a piece, you may retain the byline or even the copyright, but you don’t own the interpretations. That’s the prerogative of readers. Here, the message is clear — Clinton and Trump are co-threats to a free press in the United States. There was no effort to contextualize this message, no qualifiers, no reality check. That Lee and Mason chose to recommit themselves to a deeply flawed piece says a great deal about the catechism of “fairness” in old-line media organizations. They’re all bad, equally bad, goes the apparent thinking.

And let’s directly attack the common and facile fallback line that “people can draw their own conclusions.” Oh, no they cannot, Lee and Mason, because you two didn’t provide a comprehensive list of Trump’s and Clinton’s transgressions. You abridged the list to facilitate false equivalency. This is awful.

To recap the imbalance between Trump’s and Clinton’s approaches to the media, we’ll re-run the list of offenses cataloged in this blog’s initial post on this absurdity:

Trump campaign:

• Bashing outlet after outlet after outlet in his speeches, often using descriptors like “disgusting” and even calling one reporter a “sleaze” on national television;

• Singling out camera operators at his rallies for failing to pan the crowd. “Look at the guy in the middle. Why aren’t you turning the camera? Terrible. So terrible. Look at him, he doesn’t turn the camera. He doesn’t turn the camera,” said Trump;

• Promising to “open up” the country’s libel laws to make it easier to sue media organizations;

• Denying press credentials to various news organizations based on unfavorable coverage. They include the The Post, Politico, the Daily Beast, Univision, Fusion, the Des Moines Register and the Huffington Post;

• Expressing frustration with the media for investigating his record of charitable donations;

• Suing a former campaign aide for violating a confidentiality agreement by speaking with the media;

• Hassling reporters for not staying in their designated pen at rallies;

• Boycotting a Fox News debate over vague concerns about one of its hosts;

• Grabbing and pushing reporters;

• Hyping a bogus National Enquirer story that spun conspiracy theories about the father of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.);

• Failing to condemn the anti-Semitic backlash against a reporter who’d written about Trump’s wife, Melania Trump.

Clinton campaign:

• Herding media reps into a roped-off area at a New Hampshire event in 2015;

• Failing to make herself available to reporters on the campaign trail and in news-conference settings.

An alert Twitter user added to the lopsidedness:

 Very good point.

Some insightful comments from readers follow at the end of Wemple’s post.

At Brookings William A. Galston writes about a new Pew Research Center study which indicates that voter turnout may be significantly higher than in recent years. He argues that, despite relatively low enthusiasm for the presidential candidates, the three quarters of the “voters who care a lot about the outcome…will turn out in droves to vote against the candidate they despise.”

Galston explains that, while enthusiasm for tbhe two presidential candidates is low, interest is high, with 80 percent of the poll respondents saying they have thought “quite a lot” about the election. This is the highest share measured in the past quarter century. Another 85 percent are “following the news about the presidential candidates very or fairly closely, also a quarter-century high.” And, 74 percent believe “it “really matters” who wins the election,”up from 63 percent in 2012.

Galston cautions, however, that voters dislike “the tone and substance of this year’s campaign” and there ius a 15 percent increase from 2012 in the number of voters who say the campaign is “too negative.” Further, “A record 41 percent of voters say that neither major party candidate would make a good president. This negative evaluation is more widespread for Republicans (46 percent) than for Democrats (33 percent).”

Galston queries Pew researchers about the seeming contradiction between enthusiasm and interest, and they provided him with data indicating that:

It appears that turnout can be relatively high even when voter satisfaction with the candidates is low, and vice versa. On the other hand, turnout tends to rise and fall in tandem with measures of voter interest and involvement. We would need a serious statistical analysis over a longer period of time to confirm these generalizations. Still, it is plausible that the Pew findings are pointing toward a higher turnout in 2016 than in 2012, perhaps as high as in 2008, although it is hard to be confident of that.

“In this era of high polarization,” concludes Galston, “we have become accustomed to high levels of mutual disapproval between political partisans. This year, disapproval is high within as well as between partisan ranks, setting the stage for what promises to be one of the most negative campaigns that any of us has ever experienced.”

For Democrats, the case for optimism is that voters already feel they know Trump quite well, since he dominates the news nearly every day, while Clinton still has room to re-introduce herself to swing voters who will soon be paying more attention to her ads and the presidential debates. The notion is that many swing voters who have doubts about Clinton will modify their attitudes once they witness her performance in the debates, and her more thoughtful policies and mature temperament will stand in sharp contrast to Trump’s dubious qualifications and comments.

Yet, Trump is skilled at media manipulation, and all too many members of the press are willing to comply. Democrats are going to have to outwork Republicans to insure that Clinton gets a fair hearing and that her impressive qualifications shine through her adversary’s smoke screen.

Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight post, “Election Update: Swing State Polls And National Polls Basically Say The Same Thing,” should give Dems reason for optimism, but not overconfidence. Here’s the scary graph:

Nonetheless, Trump’s overall position has improved slightly. He has a 22 percent chance to win the election according to the polls-only forecast, as compared with a 19 percent chance when we launched last Wednesday. And in polls-plus, which also accounts for economic conditions, his chances have improved to 29 percent from 26 percent.

Boo!

Yes, that’s right, Dems. One of the top analysts of political statistics rates Donald Trump’s chances of being elected President at better than one out of four and only slightly less than one out of three on the eve of the GOP convention. It could happen.

Imagine a range of unlikely, but not-out-of-the-question scenarios, like a stock market/401K meltdown, a brutal terrorist attack, Clinton hitting the banana peel, or Trump somehow starts listening to smarter advisors etc. Or a perfect storm of all of the above, and yes, it could get worse.

But don’t bet on it. Silver is not giving due consideration to unquantifiable factors like: the Democratic ad storm that is about to cover Trump with a tsunami of well-earned shame; nor the bizarre circus that the GOP convention is getting ready to present; nor the ad campaign introducing Hillary Clinton as a person of exceptional seriousness, accomplishments and actual likeability. And then there will be the debates, which will spotlight the intellect and temperament of the two candidates. Oh, and don’t forget the impressive competence and management of the Clinton campaign in stark contrast to that of her Republican rival. Weighing all of that, a Democratic landslide is far more likely than a Trump upset.

The takeaway from the rest of Silver’s nuanced analysis offers a much more optimistic picture of Clinton vs. Trump polling, and he notes that “Clinton’s state polls tell a stronger story for her than the national polls do.” Given the realities of political polarization in America, she is doing as well as could be expected in early July.

Still, shite sometimes happens. The worst thing would be for Democrats to drift into complacency and overconfidence. That’s the danger.

Instead, Democrats must create more of a sense of urgency and excitement about this election, less based on fear of Donald Trump in charge of the world’s economy and the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile than on the opportunity to secure a working majority for progressive change. We’re not likely to see a better one for a long time.

Let’s not settle for a Clinton victory and a modest Senate majority. That’s a recipe for continued gridlock and political frustration. What is needed is an explosion of grassroots Democratic activism, including  energetic voter registration, education and turnout campaigns of unprecedented intensity. For those who want a better future for their children and a better America, that’s the challenge of the hour.

Yesterday J. P. Green flagged a post by Sam Wang, an expert on probability statistics,  who pinpoints North Carolina as the only state he could rate a genuine toss-up at this political moment.

Today President Obama will join Hillary Clinton in Charlotte to help boost her campaign and see if they can move NC into the “leans Democratic” category. Obama won the state’s electoral votes in 2008, but lost it in 2012. In their Bloomberg.com post on the changing political views of educated white voters in the tarheel state, Margaret Talev, Jennifer Epstein and Gregory Giroux note that African Americans are expected to be about one in four NC voters in November.

Since 2012 the demographic winds have shifted in a slightly more favorable direction for NC Democrats. Perhaps even more significantly, the NC Republican establishment has made an awful mess of their prospects by cranking up hysteria on the transgender bathroom “issue” with the ‘HB2 law,’ which has cost the state significant business revenues and embarrassed NC residents.

Talev, Epstein and Giroux quote Morgan Jackson, a Raleigh consultant to the Clinton campaign, who notes the effect of the publicity and other trends favoring Clinton and the Democrats in NC, which also has a GOP governorship and Senate seat being contested:

…We are growing in a more diverse way, the electorate’s getting less and less white, and more urbanized, and more folks have college degrees. All those things are connecting together. And there’s a huge out-of-state migration into these areas. People move to where the jobs are.”

Meanwhile, Jackson said that that the HB2 law had “turned off all of suburbia” and represented “a big mistake” for Republicans. A number of artists, from Bruce Springsteen to Cirque du Soleil, nixed plans to perform in the state, while some, like Cyndi Lauper, said they would donate proceeds from their shows there to LGBT causes.

“It very quickly went from being about bathrooms, or even discrimination, to jobs and the state’s reputation nationally,” said Jackson. “Exactly the voters Trump needs to bring over not only are turned off by his rhetoric, but the water is poisoned by HB2.”

The authors also quote TDS founding editor Ruy Teixeira, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and author of major works on changing political demographics and political attitudes in the U.S., who sees Democrats making significant inroads with white educated voters: “The moment [Trump] became a serious candidate, it immediately presented itself as a hypothesis…” Further,

Texeira said Clinton isn’t expected to win a majority of the white, college-educated vote in North Carolina, and that she doesn’t have to to carry the state. He said she just needs to do better than Obama did in 2012, when he took about 30 percent of that vote. “If the minority vote’s very strong for Clinton and she can even do somewhat-less-bad among the white, college-educated vote, then that should be enough,” he said. “If she got 40 percent it’s almost a lock that she wins the state.”

The authors add that Clinton is now doing much better with white educated voters:

Recent national polls of registered voters show Clinton leading with college-educated whites, a group that Obama lost by 14 percentage points nationally in 2012 and by four points in 2008. The size of her advantage in late June varied from just one point in a Wall Street Journal-NBC News survey, to an eight-point edge in a Washington Post-ABC News poll, to 10 points in a Quinnipiac University survey.

…If the shift in the white, college-educated vote nationally holds in swing states, Texeira predicted Trump is “toast.” “Trump would have to carry the white, working class vote by something like 36 points or 40 points,” he said.

…White, college-educated voters could also help Clinton strengthen Democrats’ prospects in states like Colorado and Virginia, which rank No. 1 and No. 9, respectively, in a Bloomberg analysis of 2014 U.S. Census Bureau data that calculates the percentages of non-Hispanic whites age 25 or older who hold bachelor’s degrees or higher. They are 44.4 percent of the population in Colorado and 40.3 percent in Virginia.

The question is, can Trump offset Clinton’s inroads with educated white voters with equivalent or better performance with white voters who have less than a college education? Trump’s prospects are further diminished by Clinton’s clear edge with Latino voters in NC and other swing states.

Much depends on the respective voter turnout operations of the two campaigns. Given the signs of increasing disarray in Trump’s campaign and the impressive management displayed by the Clinton campaign, the smart money favors the Democrats.

A new Public Policy Polling survey of registered voters in six swing states — AZ, IA, NH, OH, PA and WI presents findings which are more interesting than the usual horse race polls. As the PPP memo on the surveys explains:

New Public Policy Polling surveys in 6 key battleground states where Republican Senators are up for reelection this year find that voters don’t trust Donald Trump and would rather have Barack Obama picking a new Supreme Court justice than him. As a result they overwhelmingly support hearings on Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court, and are inclined to punish the vulnerable Republican Senators who are holding up his selection.

…-Voters in all six states, by margins ranging from 5 to 23 points, say they don’t trust Donald Trump to nominate a Supreme Court justice. Voters in WI (34% trust Trump, 57% don’t) and in the home of Judiciary Committee Chair Charles Grassley of IA (35% trust Trump, 52% don’t) are particularly skeptical of Trump’s ability to name a Justice.

That puts all of the hand-wringing about Hillary Clinton’s “trust” problem in context. Further, the memo states “voters in all six states clearly say that they *do* trust President Obama with the responsibility of making a Supreme Court selection, especially in contrast to Trump. In the key Presidential battlegrounds of Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin Obama has at least a 9 point advantage over Trump on that question in every state.

Poll respondents said they trusted Obama more than Trump for selecting the next Supreme Court justice by the following margins in each state: AZ+1; IA+10; NH+14; OH+11; PA+9; and WI +17. In addition, “More than 60% of voters in each of these states supports hearings for Garland, by margins ranging from 38 to 46 points. That includes overwhelming support from critical independent voters, and even plurality support from Republicans in 4 of the 6 states”

The PPP surveys indicate that Republican senators in these six states are in trouble — “5 of the 6 have negative approval ratings and the one exception, Chuck Grassley, still has his worst approval numbers in years with them coming in only narrowly on positive ground at 43/40. Voter unhappiness about obstructionism on the Supreme Court issue could be what flips all these toss up races into the Democratic column and gives them control of the Senate next year…”
Even better,

One other thing serving as a drag on these vulnerable Senate Republicans is the unpopularity of their leader, Mitch McConnell. McConnell’s approval rating is under 15% in all six states, and being tied to him has the potential to damage the political standing of the members of his caucus. His net approval ranges from -26 at best to -45 at worst in this set of states.

Gratifying though it is to see Mitch McConnell paying a price for his obstructionist “leadership,” there are as many as five other swing/battleground states, including FL, MI, NC, VA and ME, and some of them show close margins in the presidential contest and/or senate races.

But the margins in the six states of the PPP surveys are nonetheless impressive and indicate that the public is tiring of the GOP senate leadership’s obstruction of an exceptionally well-qualified nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court. Put that together with the fallout following Speaker Ryan’s refusal to allow votes on popular gun safety measures, and the GOP looks even more like an elitist political party that thwarts the democratic process to block even moderate progress.

The following article by Democratic strategist Mike Lux, Leo Hindery, Jr. and Michael Wessel (author notes below), is cross-posed from HuffPo:

Last week’s Brexit vote was just the latest example — albeit a giant one — in this wild political year when workers have been sending the clear message that status quo economic policies are unacceptable. Politicians here in America and in Europe ignore the concerns of workers at their great peril. For the Democratic Party in this country in 2016, the lessons are especially clear.

In the 35 years since Ronald Reagan became president, we’ve seen a steady erosion in the attention political leaders have given to the economic and political concerns of the working class. From the dramatic decline of union membership to the excessive deregulation of Wall Street; from trade deals that enrich multinational corporations but not American workers to a lack of antitrust enforcement that’s allowed near-monopolies in too many sectors; from a lack of significant wage increases for all but the top 10 percent of Americans to ever-escalating inflation in the costs of health care, groceries and college, our political system breakdown and our persistent “trickle down” sense of economics have combined — and conspired — to weaken the well-being of most American working people and retirees.

And now they’re angry, in ways that once hardly seemed imaginable.

A ridiculous huckster and nativist named Donald J. Trump is only days away from officially being the Republican Party nominee for president. And in the United Kingdom, Brexit has just validated that working class anger isn’t only an American phenomenon and concern.

The Democratic Party and the Hillary Clinton campaign need to understand that this reality matters, and that — in spite of some national polls showing a significant lead right now — beating Donald Trump in 2016 will be no easy lift. For all the people Trump has offended over the last year and for all of his racism and misogyny, for all the mistakes he has made in recent weeks, he is in a near tie with Secretary Clinton in several key swing states, and is still within striking distance nationally. And don’t forget that Trump outperformed his polling numbers throughout much of his primary run.

Democrats at all levels are going to need a big turnout of our base, as well as a message that appeals strongly to working class swing voters.

The good news is that the Democratic Party Convention platform being developed in advance of Philadelphia is a sign of things moving very much in the right directions. On a wide range of economic issues, the current draft sections of the Party platform are more responsive to working families’ concerns than we’ve seen in decades. There is great language on toughening up our trade deals and making them more focused on workers and their continued fair employment and less focused on just further enriching big business. There are calls for a new Glass-Steagall Act, for breaking up “Too Big to Fail” banks, and for a Financial Transactions Tax. A $15 minimum wage indexed for inflation is demanded, as is, importantly, a new large-scale jobs program to include major spending on infrastructure through a new infrastructure bank with a ‘buy domestic’ demand and worker protections.

Read more…

The following article by William A. Galston, senior fellow, governance studies at Brookings, is cross-posted from Brookings.

Although a few political analysts have been focusing on the white working class for years, it is only in response to the rise of Donald Trump that this large group of Americans has begun to receive the attention it deserves. Now, thanks to a comprehensive survey that the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) undertook in collaboration with the Brookings Institution, we can speak with some precision about the distinctive attitudes and preferences of these voters.

There are different ways of defining the white working class. Along with several other survey researchers, PRRI defines this group as non-Hispanic whites with less than a college degree, with the additional qualification of being paid by the hour or by the job rather than receiving a salary. No definition is perfect, but this one works pretty well. Most working-class whites have incomes below $50,000; most whites with BAs or more have incomes above $50,000. Most working-class whites rate their financial circumstances as only fair or poor; most college educated whites rate their financial circumstances as good or excellent. Fifty-four percent of working-class whites think of themselves as working class or lower class, compared to only 18 percent of better-educated whites.

The PRRI/Brookings study finds that in many respects, these two groups of white voters see the world very differently. For example, 54 percent of college-educated whites think that America’s culture and way of life have improved since the 1950s; 62 percent of white working-class Americans think that it has changed for the worse. Sixty-eight percent of working-class whites, but only 47 percent of college-educated whites, believe that the American way of life needs to be protected against foreign influences. Sixty-six percent of working-class whites, but only 43 percent of college-educated whites, say that discrimination against whites has become as big a problem as discrimination against blacks and other minorities. In a similar vein, 62 percent of working-class whites believe that discrimination against Christians has become as big a problem as discrimination against other groups, a proposition only 38 percent of working-class whites endorse.

This brings us to the issue of immigration. By a margin of 52 to 35 percent, college-educated whites affirm that today’s immigrants strengthen our country through their talent and hard work. Conversely, 61 percent of white working-class voters say that immigrants weaken us by taking jobs, housing, and health care.

Seventy-one percent of working-class whites think that immigrants mostly hurt the economy by driving down wages, a belief endorsed by only 44 percent of college-educated whites. Fifty-nine percent of working-class whites believe that we should make a serious effort to deport all illegal immigrants back to their home countries; only 33 percent of college-educated whites agree. Fifty-five percent of working-class whites think we should build a wall along our border with Mexico, while 61 percent of whites with BAs or more think we should not. Majorities of working-class whites believe that we should make the entry of

Syrian refugees into the United States illegal and temporarily ban the entrance of non-American Muslims into our country; about two-thirds of college-educated whites oppose each of these proposals.

Opinions on trade follow a similar pattern. By a narrow margin of 48 to 46 percent, college-educated whites endorse the view that trade agreements are mostly helpful to the United States because they open up overseas markets while 62 percent of working-class whites believe that they are harmful because they send jobs overseas and drive down wages.

It is understandable that working-class whites are more worried that they or their families will become victims of violent crime than are whites with more education. After all, they are more likely to live in neighborhoods with higher levels of social disorder and criminal behavior. It is harder to explain why they are also much more likely to believe that their families will fall victim to terrorism. To be sure, homegrown terrorist massacres of recent years have driven home the message that it can happen to anyone, anywhere.

We still need to explain why working-class whites have interpreted this message in more personal terms.
The most plausible interpretation is that working-class whites are experiencing a pervasive sense of vulnerability. On every front–economic, cultural, personal security–they feel threatened and beleaguered.

They seek protection against all the forces they perceive as hostile to their cherished way of life–foreign people, foreign goods, foreign ideas, aided and abetted by a government they no longer believe cares about them. Perhaps this is why fully 60 percent of them are willing to endorse a proposition that in previous periods would be viewed as extreme: the country has gotten so far off track that we need a leader who is prepared to break so rules if that is what it takes to set things right.

Anyone who has been wondering about Donald Trump’s capacity for statesmanship and global economic leadership will find an instructive read this morning at HuffPo, Lee Moran’s “Angry Scots Troll Donald Trump Over Brexit Gaffe: The Donald got his facts wrong. Again.”

In his first international trip as the leader of the Republican party, Trump demonstrated remarkable insensitivity to, as well as ignorance of the serious concerns of Scots and Brits about their economic future. Trump’s Scottish debacle was a consequence of his poor timing and judgement in re-opening the Trump Turnberry Golf Resort, while the Scots voted on European Union membership.

If you thought that the leader of the GOP would at least be well-informed enough to know how Scots voted on the issue, you would be very wrong. Trump tweeted “Just arrived in Scotland. Place is going wild over the vote. They took their country back, just like we will take America back. No games!” It was not well-received. As Moran writes,

Trump also faced a backlash after tweeting that people in Scotland were “going wild” following the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union…Many Scots are angry at his tweet because most actually voted to remain inside the EU.

…All 32 council areas and a total 62 percent of Scots backed the UK to remain in the EU, according to the BBC. It was in contrast to the U.K. as a whole, which voted 52 percent to 48 percent for “leave.”

Dozens of Twitter users branded Trump a “moron,” “weapons-grade plum” and “idiot” — including British pop star Lily Allen, TV presenter Sue Perkins and comedian Peter Serafinowicz.

Add to all of that the callousness of opening a luxury golf resort designed to serve as a playground for the wealthy at a time when millions of working people in the UK are concerned about their economic security as their country prepares to leave the European Union. Not exactly the signature of a serious world leader. Oh well, at least they’ll have a fancy golf resort for the elites.

The last thing the UK and Europe need at this political moment is a visit from the world’s most famous immigrant-basher. The UK’s outgoing Prime Minister David Cameron described Trump’s Muslim-bashing as “divisive, unhelpful and quite simply wrong” and Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said his comments were “repugnant and offensive.”

There is a fair amount of media hand-wringing about the Brexit vote and the possibility that it may mean working people in the developing countries are leaning more favoraby toward immigration restrictions and trade protectionism, which Trump has supported. It will take some better polling to verify any such trends, and Clinton has the time to tweak her message accordingly.

What is clear is that Trump has once again damaged his credibility with ill-considered comments. No doubt many Europeans are this morning experiencing enhanced appreciation for the prospect of Hillary Clinton’s leadership — instead of the disastrous alternative.

Findings from a National Survey of Hispanic Women

A recent poll of Latina voters commissioned by American Women, Voto Latino Action Network and iAmerica Action[1] highlights the important role of Hispanic women in this year’s presidential elections.
These women are strongly positive toward Hillary Clinton and Democrats; meanwhile, they view Donald Trump very hostilely, not surprising in the wake of his incendiary rhetoric on immigration.

Latinas face a great deal of stress around money and family, with a diverse set of concerns that covers not only economic challenges but also family and balancing their responsibilities at work and at home. Latinas, and particularly millennial Latinas, are more likely to report earning less than $15 an hour. They want to support candidates whose policy agenda will allow them to achieve a bright future, including equal pay, college affordability, paid sick days and family leave, affordable childcare, and reproductive rights.

Moreover, Latinas express more enthusiasm for voting in the 2016 elections than in the 2014 mid-term elections, driven by very polarized feelings about the political parties and candidates.

The following are key findings from a national telephone survey of 400 Latina registered voters conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. The survey was run in parallel with an online survey of 800 registered voters nationally.

84% of Latinas View Trump Negatively
These women come to this election with very polarized feelings toward the political parties and candidates at the top of the ticket. Latinas express strong favorable feelings for the Democratic Party, President Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton alike, while white men and women view them negatively. At the same time, Latinas hold a negative view of the Republican Party generally, but reserve their harshest sentiments for the presumptive Republican nominee. An overwhelming 84 percent of Latinas view Trump negatively.

Latinas show intense support for pay equality, college affordability, and reproductive health policies
Given the concerns facing Latinas and their hope for the future, it is not surprising that they strongly favor candidates who advocate for college affordability, pay equality, and paid sick and paid family leave in the workplace. The intensity of support is notable here, with nearly 8 out of 10 Latinas who say they would be “much more likely” to support a candidate for elected office who took these positions.
Latinas also strongly support policies to protect women’s reproductive health, with large majorities more likely to vote for a candidate who will protect women’s access to birth control and abortion. This includes 69 percent of Latinas under the age of 50 and 54 percent of older Latinas. Likewise, half of Latinas say they are less likely to vote for a candidate who supports defunding Planned Parenthood and passing a ban on abortion.

Overwhelming support for immigration reform policies among Latinas
Not surprisingly, strong majorities of Latinas favor policies that would provide not only allow undocumented immigrants to stay in the country and gain legal resident status, but also provide a path to citizenship. Two-thirds of Latinas strongly favor a path to citizenship, with more than nine out of ten (92 percent) favoring the policy overall. Just 13 percent of Latinas support building a fence along the border with Mexico; 83 percent oppose the plan.

Latinas express strong intention to vote in 2016
Latinas have an opportunity to be a key bloc in this year’s elections. In this survey, 59 percent of Latinas report voting in 2014; now, nearly 81 percent say they are “almost certain” to vote in 2016.

Read more at GQR here.