Survey: Share of Latinos who say they’ll vote this year down from 2012

Political analysts wondering whether Latinos will finally vote en masse for the U.S. president have at least one indication that the “sleeping giant” may stay asleep this year.

A bitter campaign punctuated by insults toward Latinos and other minority groups doesn’t appear to have made huge swaths of Latino voters more eager to cast ballots.

In fact, the share of Latino voters who say they will definitely vote this year is down from 2012, according to data from the Pew Research Center’s national survey of Latinos, released today.

The number of eligible Latino voters reached a record 27.3 million this year, up 4 million since 2012. Overall, 69% of registered Latino voters say they are “absolutely certain” they will vote this November. That’s down from 77% who said the same in 2012, according to Pew.

Millennials will make up nearly half of the Latinos eligible to vote in 2016, and they are not widely throwing their support behind Clinton.

During the primary season, younger Latino voters tended to favor Sanders. According to Pew, 62% say they are absolutely certain they will vote in the general election, compared to 74% who said the same in 2012.

Historically, Latino voters are less likely to vote in presidential elections than African-Americans and white voters. In 2008, the turnout rate for Latinos was nearly 50 percent, and dropped slightly in 2012 to 48 percent.

But Latinos are engaged, according to Pew. The survey shows three-quarters of Hispanic registered voters say they have discussed Donald Trump’s comments about Hispanics or other groups with family, friends or coworkers in the past year.

Among Hispanic registered voters who have discussed the Republican candidate’s comments, 74% say they have given “quite a lot” of thought to the presidential election and 74% say they are “absolutely certain” they will vote.

By a wide margin, Latino voters continue to view the Democratic Party as ‘more concerned’ about Latinos than the GOP: 54% say the Democratic Party has more concern for Latinos, while 11% say the Republican Party does.

The survey also found that Trump trails by a sizable margin in the presidential race. About six in 10 registered Latino voters (58%) favor Clinton, while just 19% support Trump; 10% favor Libertarian Gary Johnson while 6% back Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee.