The U.S. Latino community prefers ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as its candidate to win the Democratic primaries, while Hispanic backing among Republicans goes to ex-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

That was revealed in a new survey taken in 14 battleground states and published Monday by Latino Decisions.

Hillary Clinton won 67 percent of voter preference among Latinos in those states, with only 27 percent against her.

On the side opposing former first lady Clinton is magnate Donald Trump, who hopes to be the Republican Party's nominee but who got a thumbs down from 71 percent of the Hispanic electorate, compared with 15 percent in favor.

Bush, who garnered the best numbers in the study among the Republican hopefuls, obtained 42 percent of voter preference, mainly due to his good results in Florida where he was governor, but was also hit with a significant 37 percent opposition to his being president.

Nonetheless, Bush is ahead of Sen. Marco Rubio, now climbing in the polls though Latinos remain largely unconvinced - 40 percent have a negative view of him while only 32 percent are buying his message.

Meanwhile neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who currently leads the pack in voter preference for the Republican primaries, is almost a complete unknown among the Hispanic community, of whom 58 percent say they have no idea who he is.

The study was taken among 424 randomly selected Hispanics in Florida, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Iowa, Georgia, New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina and Michigan.

Latino Decisions notes that neither New York nor California was polled, despite their large Hispanic populations, because they are states that traditionally vote Democratic.

The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.7 percent. EFE