5 Voting Groups to Watch this Election Cycle

By Nikki Schwab - U.S. News and World Report
Wednesday, August 13, 2008 - Web Link
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August 13, 2008

Hispanics

The difference was palpable. When John McCain and Barack Obama spoke in the same city at the same conference on the same day, McCain's speech was met with polite applause and the nodding of heads. Obama's appearance, to a larger audience a few hours later, received robust cheers as audience members waved "Latinos for Obama" signs. The candidates, appearing in July at the League of United Latin American Citizens' convention, were both trying to bolster support among a pivotal swing constituency.

Now the largest minority group in the United States, Hispanics have historically trended Democratic. In 2004, however, Republicans pushed hard for Hispanic support, launching the "Viva Bush" campaign and flooding key regions with Spanish-language ads. Exit polls showed that President Bush got the votes of about 40 percent of this group, up from the 35 percent he garnered in 2000, helping him win swing states like New Mexico. His campaign manager, Ken Mehlman, called Bush's percentage of the Latino vote "the single most important number" to come out of the election.

Earlier this year, there were some experts who thought Republicans could do well with Hispanic voters because of the divisiveness of the primary battle between Obama and Hillary Clinton, who had strong Hispanic support. But today, polls suggest that Demo-crats are pulling Latinos back into their ranks. In a recent survey from the Pew Research Center, Obama was leading McCain among Hispanics, 66 percent to 23 percent. Latino respondents said education, the cost of living, jobs, and healthcare were their most important issues, and favored Obama strongly over McCain on all of them. "I think people had questions at first because of the primaries, which showed that Hispanics favored Hillary Clinton by 2 to 1, but a bad economy and party ID have already converted Hispanics to Obama," says Larry Sabato of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

If that holds up, Obama could turn what was a solid-red American West in 2004 into more of a checkerboard. Strong Hispanic support could make the difference in New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado, says Sabato. The only downside? This demographic has a reputation for not turning out as heavily as some other ethnic groups.