Lest the headline seems a tad bit confusing, we're not discussing Latino voters in the United States who have begun vanishing without a trace, perhaps being sucked up into some sort of premature Rapture falling across the land. These voters are not disappearing entirely. They are simply no longer showing up in the polls as supporters of Kamala Harris the way they traditionally have turned out for other Democrats. A new poll from NBC News and Telemundo shows that Harris still leads Donald Trump with Latino voters, but the margin of that lead has shrunk to levels not seen over the past four presidential election cycles. This shift comes at a particularly awkward time for Harris, who is scrambling to secure the votes of Muslim and Arab-American voters, but those priorities have turned out to leave a sour taste in the mouths of many Latino voters who give Trump higher marks on issues such as the economy and inflation. Those two issues were ranked among the highest priorities among this group of voters. 

Vice President Kamala Harris is leading former President Donald Trump among Latino voters. But that advantage has declined to Democrats’ lowest level in the past four presidential cycles, according to a new national NBC News/Telemundo/CNBC poll.

Overall, the poll shows that Democratic presidential candidate Harris has lost some ground with Latinos at a time when these consequential voters are more likely than the general electorate to cite the economy and the rising cost of living as top priorities. On both of these issues, Latino voters give Trump the advantage, but a majority of them prefer Harris on temperament, competency and having the necessary mental and physical health to be president.

To be clear, these aren't disastrous numbers for Harris, at least at first glance. She's still at 54% among Latino voters, which keeps her above water. Conversely, Donald Trump is at 45%, with six percent saying they were undecided or did not plan to vote. Many other candidates would trade their eyeteeth for numbers like those, they all have an R after their names. 

Taking those factors into consideration, Harris' numbers look considerably worse. When you add in the historical data ranging back to 2012 (at least) they smell even worse. The same poll taken at this late stage of the campaign over the previous three presidential election cycles shows more than a significant "sag." The Democrats in those races enjoyed leads of 39, 50, and 36 points respectively. Making matters worse, this NBC Poll significantly overestimated the actual turnout by a wide margin. Those Democratic candidates won the Latino vote with 44, 38, and 33 points in that demographic group.

The good news for Donald Trump here is that he doesn't need to win the Latino vote outright to carry the race. He just needs to eat into Kamala's lead among Hispanics sufficiently to cut the legs out from under one of the key elements of her base. Harris has already been losing ground among Black voters and almost all the same considerations apply to that group. Meanwhile, none of Harris and Biden's pandering to the pro-Hamas groups protesting Harris everywhere she goes seems to be moving the needle on that issue. 

So does this poll suggest that Donald Trump is finally "breaking through" and sealing Kamala's fate in the general election? Hardly. Assuming that any of these polls can be trusted or are being reported accurately by the legacy media (a huge assumption at this point), this race is shifting by the day if not the hour. Given the current conditions in the country, I remain befuddled as to how the contest continues to seem so close. But we seem to be sailing into uncharted waters here, so we'll keep on monitoring the situation and report accordingly.