Hispanic vote made a difference this time

Houston Chronicle:

Each election cycle during the past few decades, political analysts have predicted the awakening of the so-called sleeping giant of the American electorate — the Latino vote.

And in the days after each election, pundits have reported that the rapidly growing demographic did not, in fact, prove to be a decisive factor in picking a new president. But no longer.

A record 10 million Latino voters helped carry President-elect Barack Obama to victory on Tuesday, supporting the Democrat by a 2-1 margin over Republican Sen. John McCain, according to a Pew Hispanic Center analysis of national exit poll data from Edison Media Research.

The overall percentage of Latino voters was in line with 2004, roughly 8 percent of all voters, the exit polls showed. But this time around, the vote was "more potent" because it swung Republican states to the Democrats, said Andy Hernandez, an Austin-based pollster who specializes in Latino politics.

"Latinos are flipping red states to blue," Hernandez said. "In this election, Latinos contributed to Virginia flipping. They were responsible for Nevada flipping. They contributed to Colorado flipping. And New Mexico went overwhelmingly Democratic, and Latinos were responsible for that."

Obama even had a strong performance in Florida, where Cuban-Americans have historically supported Republicans by large measures, taking 57 percent of the total Latino vote Tuesday, the exit polls showed.

In Texas, Obama received about 63 percent of the Latino vote, compared with McCain's 35 percent, Hernandez said. Latinos in the state cast an estimated 1.6 million votes, he said. They made up about 20 percent of Texas voters, according to the Pew analysis.

In Harris County, the Latino vote fell short of some expectations amid lower-than-predicted overall turnout (although African-Americans came to the polls in record numbers).

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The large margin of support for Obama marks a significant shift toward Democrats from 2004, when more than 50 percent of Latino voters supported Sen. John Kerry and 40 percent voted for President Bush. Both McCain and Obama courted the Latino vote, running ads on Spanish-language radio in battleground states including Colorado, New Mexico, Las Vegas and Florida.

Yet immigration never emerged as a key issue in the general election, which was dominated in the final weeks by the bailout of the financial markets.

But it was hotly debated in the Republican primary, where McCain was criticized by his party base for supporting immigration reform that would offer an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants a path toward citizenship. In the final months of his campaign, McCain expressed support for an "enforcement-first" strategy on immigration.

Detailed exit poll data from Los Angeles and Miami released on Thursday found immigration was an important issue for Latino voters, particularly those from Mexico and Central and South America. The immigration issue clearly hurt McCain, said Sergio Bendixen, a polling expert with Bendixen and Associates, which interviewed more than 2,100 voters from Latin America.

The exit poll found immigration was considered to be "very important" to three-fifths of voters from Mexico and much of Latin America. That data excluded U.S.-born Hispanics, Cuban refugees and Puerto Ricans.

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The immigration issue almost cost McCain the nomination. It is ironic that Hispanics did not reward his political courage and in fact voted against him. However if the polling suggest that he lost Hispanic voters because he accepted the political reality that immigration reform was not going to happen, it should also acknowledge that had he not accepted that political reality he would have lost even more non Hispanic votes.

In essence the Hispanic vote against McCain was so irrational that it make sit less likely that Republicans will stick their neck out for them in the future. A large and passionate majority of American voters want enforcement of the immigration laws regardless of the out come of this election. Even the Democrats recognize that political reality. Hispanics will be just another group that Obama will disappoint.

The NY Times also looks at the Hispanic vote breakdown. They were the margin of victory in Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada and also had an impact in Florida. It is a mistake for Hispanics to hitch their wagon to the Democrat party. It will wind up taking them for granted the way it does blacks.