Obama is still crushing McCain in the Hispanic / Latino community. It seems that McCain has gotten nothing for all his spending the past month. Those of you familiar with my diaries and my site know that this isn’t "new," news, but it seems to be new to CNN. Today the Pew Hispanic Center released a new poll that shows Obama crushing McCain in the demographic.
Obama 66%
McCain 23%
Telephone interview with a sample size do 2,015.... Very nice!
crossposted on my site, www.ourhispanicvoices.com
From CNN...
Obama's approval rating with registered Latino voters, the nationwide Pew Hispanic Center poll found, is at 66 percent versus 23 percent favoring McCain.
"He now appears to be even more popular than Hillary Clinton among Latinos," Lopez said.
In comparison, a CNN "poll of polls" from July 16, shows Obama holding a 6-point lead over McCain among general registered voters.
CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said past voting history among Hispanics has favored Democrats.
"Since 1972, Democratic candidates for president have, on average, won 64 percent of the Hispanic vote. So a 66 percent mark for Obama is pretty much what you would expect a Democratic candidate to get from Latinos," he said.
The poll, taken June 9-July 13, also examined the effect of race in the 2008 election.
By a margin of about 3-to-1 respondents said Obama's race would help him as opposed to hurt him with Latino voters. Fifty-three percent said his race wouldn't be a big factor in their support.
By a margin of 2-to-1 respondents said McCain's race will hurt rather than help his chances. Fifty-eight percent said McCain's race will "make no difference."
The survey shows kitchen table issues like education, jobs and health care weigh heavy on Latino voters.
Ninety-three percent of those surveyed said education was the top issue, followed by jobs, 91 percent, and health care, 90 percent.
"By a margin of 3-to-1, Hispanic registered voters believe that Obama will do a better job than McCain of dealing with education, jobs ... health care," Lopez said.
This is the most recent pure poll to be released. Earlier in the month Gallup released a poll that showed Obama 62% to McCain’s 29%. While the numbers are still fantastic, the poll was an accumulation of their daily tracking data over a period of time. That is one way to conduct a poll, but not a great way to do so, but the final results still hovered around others that were released so it seemed to sort of work.
In mid June the National Survey of Latino Voters, released their May-June poll that showed Obama leading McCain 63% - 24%. The sample was solid and it supported polls released by Cable and News outlets. For some reason CNN has been ignoring the Hispanic polls to try and play on a divide. This just isn’t the case. The poll showed that 3/4 of the Hispanics surveyed said they voted for Clinton. The black brown divide they played on in the primaries just isn’t there. The NSLV will be releaseing their July - August poll in mid August.
Stories, interviews, and polls of Hispanics dating back to March showed that the demographic was going to support the Democrat no matter who won the primary. Obama is pulling better than traditional Democratic numbers. Over the years dating back to the 70’s the Democrats have pulled numbers in the 60’s with an average of around 64% Republicans traditionally pull numbers in the mid to upper thirties. What is telling about all the polls that have been released is that McCain CANNOT pull traditional numbers in the demographic. Poll after poll he can’t crack out of the 20’s, and except for the Gallup 29%, he can’t get out of the lower 20’s.
This is a HUGE McCain problem that is compounded by the fact that his big spending on radio, internet, and TV advertising got him nothing. He spent a lot of money targeting the deomgraphic starting back in June. He’s speech's to all the major Hispanic organizations seems to have gotten him diddly. One can argue that according to the Gallup poll (which CNN will use) McCain is losing the little support he has in the demographic. And while no one in the Hispanic community really believes the flawed exit polls of 2004 that showed Bush getting 40% of the vote, that number will be used when comparing him to Bush. Not good.
Here is the full poll. It is a very interesting read full of brutal tidbits that are not good for McCain. Here are a few I pulled, but read the PDF cause it is goooooddddd.
More than half of Latino voters (55%) say that the Democratic Party is better for Latinos while just 5% say that the Republican Party is better for Latinos.
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Hispanic voters increasingly identify with the Democratic Party. Among Latino registered voters who identify with either political party or who say they lean towards that party, Democrats now hold a 39 percentage point advantage, larger than at any time in the past decade, with 65% of registered voters identifying as or leaning towards the Democrats, and 26% identifying as or leaning towards the Republicans.
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Nearly four-in-ten (38%) Hispanic voters say that Latinos’ situation in the country has gotten worse in the past year, compared with just 18% who say it has gotten better.
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Half of all Latino voters (50%) believe that Obama is better for immigrants, 12% believe that McCain is better and 32% say that there is no difference between the candidates.
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By a margin of more than three-to-one Hispanic registered voters believe that Obama will do a better job than McCain of dealing with education (66% versus 18%), jobs (65% versus 19%), the cost of living (64% versus 19%), health care (64% versus 19%) and immigration (59% versus 19%). They also believe, by a margin of about two-to-one, that
Obama will do a better job than McCain on crime (50% versus 26%) and the war in Iraq (58% versus 27%).
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More than two-thirds (70%) of Latino registered voters are dissatisfied with the country’s direction. In contrast, 27% of Latino voters are satisfied with the how things are going in the country.
I highlighted the "Obama better in Iraq" becasue McCain has REALLLLY gone after the Latino military family. He doesn't understand we all our loved ones back ASAP safe and sound.
The numbers are great, but now we need to focus on turning out the vote. During the primaries the demographic increased it's new registered voters by 1 million. It is expected that the Hispanic groups will be able to top that for the General election by adding an additional 2 million new voters.
3 million new resitered voters in the demograhic is fantastic. Those drives matter. Now we need to make sure those additional 3 million make it to the polls.