LAS VEGAS — Donald Trump’s tough immigration plan didn’t prevent him from winning the Latino vote in the Silver State Tuesday night.
According to entrance polls, Trump won 45 percent of Latinos who participated in the Republican caucuses in Nevada, nearly as much as the combined total of the two Latino candidates in the race, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Rubio garnered 29 percent of the Latino vote, while Cruz attracted 18 percent.(RELATED: Exit Polls In South Carolina And New Hampshire: GOP Primary Voters Say They Support ‘Amnesty‘)
Just eight percent of Republican voters who participated in the caucuses Tuesday identified as Latino, according to the entrance polls. Henry Olson, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, cautioned observers not to make too much of Trump’s result among Latinos because the sample side was “[t]oo small to trust.”
“If the entrance poll had 1500 N, Hisp only 120,” he tweeted. “Too small to trust.”
Trump, the clear front-runner for the Republican nomination after winning three of the first four Republican primary electoral contests, accused most of the illegal immigrants flowing into the United States of being rapists and drug dealers during his speech announcing his candidacy for the White House in June. Since then, he has made immigration policy a cornerstone of his campaign, pledging to build a wall along the U.S. Mexican border paid for by Mexico and to deport all illegal immigrants residing in the United States.
This article is being updated as more entrance poll numbers come in.