Republican candidate Donald Trump is polling better than expected with Hispanic voters, on par with previous GOP nominee Mitt Romney, The Hill reports.
At the time, Romney's support among Hispanic voters was seen as dismal, to the point that the Republican National Committee asked for a "post-mortem" to show just how they could win the support of Hispanics and other demographics.
Despite his controversial rhetoric on illegal immigration and his call for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, there's little evidence to suggest that Trump is lagging among Hispanic voters.
In 2012, President Barack Obama beat Romney by 47 percent among Hispanic voters in Nevada. According to a recent Marist poll for NBC News/The Wall Street Journal, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton leads with Hispanics in the state by a margin of 35 percent.
A "poll decoder" from Bloomberg Politics showed on Tuesday that, on average, Clinton leads Trump with Hispanics by 38 points. In 2012, Obama won with 44 percent of Hispanic voters, according to exit polls.
Despite the numbers, Democrats remain optimistic of Clinton's chances.
She "has the right team in place and I think people will 'come home,'" Chuck Rocha, a Hispanic strategist for the Democratic Party who previously consulted for Sen. Bernie Sanders, told the Hill.
"Latino voters may not have come home yet."
"From what I am hearing, and from the information I am getting, there are possibly 20–25 percent of Latinos who will support Donald Trump," said Lionel Sosa, Hispanic GOP strategist.
"We do have very conservative Latinos who will vote for Republicans, no matter what. There is a base there, just as there is for any group."
He believes Trump's talk on improving the job market and his status as a Washington outsider could appeal to Hispanic voters, and his owning several casinos could be helping him in Nevada.
Sosa's worked for multiple Republican presidents, most recently George W. Bush, but he won't support the GOP nominee this year.
"I consider myself a very moderate Republican," he said. "I cannot support Donald Trump," opting for Libertarian Gary Johnson instead.
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