Bernie Sanders leads Democratic primary candidates with Texas Latino voters in new poll

Rick Jervis | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders at El Paso rally Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders speaks at campaign rally Feb. 22 at Downtown El Paso concert hall.

AUSTIN -- Bernie Sanders may have drawn a maelstrom of criticism from Florida Hispanics following his comments on Fidel Castro. But he remains an attractive choice for Texas Latinos.

The Vermont senator leads all Democratic primary challengers among Latino voters in Texas, according to a poll released Friday by Univision Noticias and the University of Houston’s Center for Mexican American Studies. Sanders garnered 31% of Latino support in Texas, followed by media mogul Mike Bloomberg with 23% and former Vice President Joe Biden with 19%, according to the poll.

Sanders also did best in head-to-head scenarios against President Donald Trump, beating out the president 65% to 25% among Texas Latinos, besting other candidates by at least 8 percentage points. Texas Latino voters also disapprove of the current president, 62% to 38%, the poll said.

Texans head to the polls on Tuesday as part of Super Tuesday primary elections, when the state’s 228 delegates will be up for grabs for Democrats. Latino are expected to play a significant role in that and in the presidential election in the fall.

More: Why is Super Tuesday so important? What's a delegate? And what happens at a brokered convention?

Another telling result from the poll: 80% of respondents said they would “almost certain” and “probably” vote in the presidential election this fall.

“That’s extremely high and highlights a lot of enthusiasm for the primary next week,” said Jeronimo Cortina, associate director at the Center for Mexican American Studies who helped lead the survey.

Sanders also leads among all voters in Texas

Univision/UH also released a survey of overall Texan voters. Similarly, in that poll, Sanders drew the most support at 26%, followed by Bloomberg and Biden, who tied at 20%, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren with 11%. Pollsters interviewed 1,004 Texas registered voters overall, including 504 Latinos. Margin of error was +/- 3.1 percentage points for overall voters, and +/- 4.4 percentage points for the Latino group.

For November’s general election, a record 32 million Latinos across the USA are projected to be eligible to vote, eclipsing the number of black eligible voters for the first time, according to the Pew Research Center.

In Texas, there are 5.6 million Latino eligible voters, second only to California's 7.9 million, and Latinos make up nearly one-third of eligible voters in both states, among the highest shares in the nation, according to the center.

Sanders appeared to bruise his chances with some Latino groups when, in an interview with “60 Minutes” on Sunday, he criticized the authoritarian nature of the Castro regime but praised the communist island’s literacy program overseen by Castro. Latinos in South Florida – mostly Cubans – railed against the comments, calling them insensitive. Florida is also home to scores of Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, who fled similar socialist regimes in their countries.

But Latinos in Texas, predominately of Mexican origin, don’t have the same connections to those parts of Latin America and were far less moved by Sanders' comments, Cortina said. The differences between Florida’s and Texas’s Latino populations underscore the diverse and complicated nature of Hispanic voters across the country, who support different issues and don’t always agree on candidates, he said.

“You cannot say, ‘the Latino electorate,’ per se. That doesn’t exist,” Cortina said. “It’s a mosaic rather than a homogeneous voting bloc.”

What's behind Sanders' support?

The Univision/UH survey also ranked lowering health care costs, improving wages and creating more jobs as the top three issues for Texas Latino voters. Of those polled, 60% of respondents said they would vote for the Democratic nominee in the general election, even if their preferred candidate doesn’t get the nod.

Andy Canales, Houston-based chairman of Latino Texas PAC, which focuses on electing more Latinos and Latinas to public office across Texas, said Sanders is doing so well in Texas because he’s focused on one of the top issues among Latinos here: affordable healthcare. Nearly 18% of Texans don’t have health insurance, the highest uninsured rate in the nation, according to U.S. Census Bureau report.

What is Super Tuesday and why is it important? A previous version of this video displayed an incorrect date in a graphic. It was 1988 when 14 Southern and border states held their primaries.

Sanders' consistent narrative of bringing affordable health care to every American and arguing that the system is set up to benefit companies rather than people strikes a chord with Latino voters, including his Salvadorian parents, who are naturalized citizens and eligible to vote, Canales said.

“People like my parents are nodding their heads when they listen to him,” he said. “He's been articulating these premises for a long time.”

Democratic presidential candidates have been paying increased attention to Texas this year, more so than in years past, and have reached out specifically to Texas Latinos. Bloomberg launched TV ads in Spanish as part of his multi-million-dollar media blitz in the state, and Warren’s campaign organized events in places like Laredo and Brownsville to mine often-overlooked voters in the Rio Grande Valley.

Sanders, too, celebrated his win in last week's Nevada caucuses with a weekend tour through Texas, holding a rally in Austin, visiting a rodeo in Dallas and speaking at a dance hall in San Antonio.

Angelica Razo, state director of Mi Familia Vota Texas, a nonpartisan civic engagement group, said she has felt the buzz of the upcoming Democratic primary and general election among Latino voters in Texas. Turnout will depend on whether candidates strike the right message or do enough to make themselves known among Hispanics.

"Candidates shouldn’t be dismissive of the Latino vote in Texas," Razo said. "There’s a lot of political power we hold here in Texas."

Follow Jervis on Twitter: @MrRJervis.