Trump probably did better with Latino voters than Romney did

In the lead-up to the election, there was a lot of talk about how Latinos would turn out in record numbers to stop Donald Trump. But not only did Trump end up winning, exit polls also indicated that he won 29 percent of the Latino vote — better than Mitt Romney had done four years earlier. That has sparked a heated debate among pollsters and advocacy groups over whether the exit polls can be trusted.

The most prominent skeptics of the exit polls’ findings have been Gary Segura and Matt Barreto, the co-founders of Latino Decisions, a polling firm that focuses on the U.S. Latino population. Segura and Barreto, who both worked for Hillary Clinton’s campaign, have argued vigorously over the past week that the exit polls were wrong and that Clinton performed better among Latinos than President Obama did in 2012. Based on their own polling, they think Clinton outperformed Obama and got nearly 80 percent of the Latino vote, not the 65 percent indicated by exit polls.