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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Friday, June 06, 2008

Obama is fine among Latinos

Without even really campaigning for the segment yet,
A new Gallup Poll summary of surveys taken in May shows Obama winning 62% of Latino registered voters nationwide, compared with just 29% for McCain. Others have found a wide gap as well. The pro-Democratic group Democracy Corps compiled surveys from March through May that showed Obama with a 19-point lead among Latinos. And a Times poll published last month showed Obama leading McCain among California Latinos by 14 points.

Despite all the insiders crediting McCain for his immigration position, that assumes a subtlety of understanding that most voters don't share. McCain is running as the head of the anti-immigration GOP and he will pay for that.

(And it's not like McCain can win this group by pressing his immigration position. That would cost him more among his base.)

6 Comments:

  • This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 7:34 AM  

  • Really. Cause I think you are a spammer.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 7:48 AM  

  • This is excellent news. While Hispanics may prefer Hillary, it certainly seems that they're fine with Obama. A great deal of the HRC camp's rhetoric on Obama's "non-electability" (is that a word?) was based on Hillary's strength in the Latino community.

    And good on ya for policing the comments.

    By Blogger Todd Dugdale , at 10:58 AM  

  • Yeah. But the claims that McCain would claim Latinos was always a mirage. After the major tsunami around the GOP's immigration thing, there was no way they would ever swing to the GOP.

    Some of the other groups may still be a more open question.

    (PS. I would add that of the polling I've seen, Obama polls about where Kerry or Gore finished with both Jews and "white working class." Have to wait and see, though as they are GOP targets this year.)

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 11:10 AM  

  • I think that "white working class" is an electoral fiction. Republicans have their primary base as "white married Christians" with gender and income not being significant after this status was taken into account.

    From the link:
    "after controlling for whether or not a voter was a married white Christian, neither gender nor income had much influence on voters' preferences. Women who were married white Christians voted overwhelmingly for Republican candidates and men who were not married white Christians voted overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates."

    The Republicans' base is eroding, and the base that Bill ran on 18 years ago has also eroded. McCain is running on a base that existed 50 years ago, but Obama is running on a base that exists today.

    I apologise for going on, but this "white working class" thing just pushes my button.

    By Blogger Todd Dugdale , at 12:06 PM  

  • Agreed.

    As big as that white under 50K is, it should probably be subdivided. Probably should slice Catholics/Evangelicals out as separate, too, as well as single/married/ and some age breakdown (45?).

    All of those subgroups are going to play differently.

    Then, of course, there's the broader question of generic-ing any group.

    (And, if you really want to look at the decline of the Repub base, look at the white/non-white numbers. By 2025 Hispanics, blacks, and "others" will make up more than 50% of the population.)

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 1:45 PM  

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