A month long poll by the Pew Hispanic Center indicates that Latino voters are becoming even more firmly entrenched in the Democratic camp:
Latino registered voters prefer President Barack Obama over Republican challenger Mitt Romney by 69% to 21% and express growing satisfaction with the direction of the nation and the state of their personal finances but are somewhat less certain than non-Hispanics that they will vote in this election, according to a new nationwide survey of 1,765 Latinos. The survey was conducted from September 7 to October 4, 2012, by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center.
Obama’s current lead over Romney among Hispanics has barely budged throughout the 2012 campaign and is larger than in the 2008 election, when he received 67% of the Hispanic vote to 31% for Republican John McCain (Lopez, 2008).
The new survey also finds a sharp rise in the past year in the share of Latinos who identify the Democratic Party as the one that has more concern for Latinos. Some 61% say this now, up from 45% in 2011. Just 10% say this about the Republican Party, down from 12% in 2011.
Romney has largely written off the Latino vote which is good news for Democrats both in this election and long term. This fast growing constituency is only going to become more vital as they continue to gain more and more influence in national elections. The fundamental key, of course, is turning them out to vote.
With the turnout rate of eligible Latinos voters historically lagging behind that of other groups, the new survey finds that 77% of Latino registered voters say they are “absolutely certain” they will vote this year. By comparison, 89% of all registered voters say the same in a separate Pew Research Center survey (2012b) of the general public taken at the same time.
The poll report indicates 70% of Latinos identify with the Democratic Party. Solidifying that support by driving up both party membership and voter participation will only help the party over the long term, putting more and more states out of reach in national elections.
One of the benefits of the Democrats advantage among Latinos and Blacks means that elections will be increasingly contested over the shrinking pool of White voters. As we see in this election, Romney can throw his best possible shot at Democrats and still only marginally improve his position because there is a large wall of voters that remain impervious. The demographic wall.
For Romney to win, he's got to get his white voter number incredibly high (60% plus). He's in an even worse position than McCain was in facing this problem. For future Republican candidates, this number is only going to get higher if they continue on their current trajectory of being the old White folks party. The Romney Campaign leaving the entire playing field among Latinos to Democratic engagement efforts is only going to set Republicans further behind in courting this key constituency.