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Matt Barreto, co-founder of Latino Decisions, a firm polling for Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, said the group's weekly tracking survey shows the Republicans' struggle with Hispanics is unprecedented since the group began polling in 2007. At the same point in the 2012 race, 17 percent of Hispanics said the Republican Party was "hostile" toward them, he said. Today the number is 44 percent.

"It's the highest we've ever seen," said Barreto, a political science professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. "Not surprisingly, this is related to Donald Trump's rise in unfavorability."

But the Democrats have their work cut out in rallying Hispanic voters.

While the number of eligible Hispanic voters is expected to top 27 million this year, according to the Pew Research Center, not even half of them showed up at the polls in either 2008 or 2012.

Clinton's struggles with Hispanic millennials are particularly notable: Only 48 percent of that group supports her, Pew found. That's a huge advantage over Trump's 15 percent, but it nonetheless poses a significant challenge to Clinton's team, not least because almost half of eligible Hispanic voters are millennials.

Still, Clinton and the Democrats are hoping that Trump's hard-line approach to those living in the country illegally — combined with his provocative statements toward Mexicans, Syrian refugees and other groups — will energize Hispanics and other minority voters this year.

Barreto rattled off a list of statistics suggesting the Clinton campaign's outreach efforts are paying off — with an assist from Trump.

• In Florida alone, 441,000 Hispanics have registered to vote since the 2012 elections, he said. On top of that, those new voters are migrating toward Democrats, who have seen their 11-point advantage in 2013 jump to a 26-point lead today.

• Fifty-one percent of Hispanic voters say they're more enthusiastic to vote in this election compared to four years earlier. The figure was 40 percent at this point in the 2012 contest. "We're now on track to have the biggest turnout of Latinos in electoral history," he said.

• At this point in 2012, Barreto's firm found Obama with a 70-20 lead over Romney among Hispanic voters. Clinton's advantage over Trump today is 75-15, he said.

• In October 2012, 53 percent of Hispanic voters viewed Romney unfavorably, he said. The figure for Trump is currently 79 percent.

"This is doing a lot of damage to not just the Trump campaign but the party overall," Barreto said.

Lorella Praeli, Clinton's director of Latino outreach, said the campaign is pushing hard with grassroots efforts not only in traditional battleground states where Hispanic voters make up significant numbers — places like Colorado, Nevada, Arizona and Virginia — but also in states where the numbers are smaller but could prove a tipping point in the contest. In North Carolina, for instance, Hispanics make up just 2 percent of voters, but that's the same margin by which Obama lost the state in 2012.

"It's enough to swing the state one way or the other," she said, "which is why we have Latino vote directors and Latino programs across [North Carolina]."