Blue Spot

VOA News - Survey: US Hispanics Favor Obama Over McCain by Wide Margin

Senator McCain represents Arizona, a state that borders Mexico and has a large Latin American immigrant community. Unlike Senator Obama, who is relatively new to the national spotlight, McCain is well known as a longtime advocate of many causes that are popular among Hispanics, including comprehensive immigration reform.

It is therefore all the more surprising that the latest poll shows Hispanics backing Obama over McCain by a ratio of nearly three-to-one.

The survey of more than 2,000 registered voters of Latin American descent was conducted by the Washington-based Pew Hispanic Center. Sixty-six percent of respondents said they support Senator Obama, compared to 23 percent for Senator McCain. Seventy-six percent of respondents said they view Obama favorably, while 44 percent said they have a favorable view of McCain.


Sen. John McCain
Although the U.S. Hispanic community is diverse, from Cuban-Americans in Florida to Mexican-Americans in California, the Pew survey showed little variance among the segments of the community that were identified in the poll.

"This support for Obama is quite broad-based, and there are few differences within demographic groups. We did not detect important differences in support for Barack Obama between Hispanic registered voters who were born in the United States and those who are immigrants. We also did not detect differences in support for Obama between Latino voters who preferred to be interviewed in Spanish and those who preferred to be interviewed in English," said Susan Minushkin, the Pew Hispanic Center's deputy director.

The survey numbers seem to indicate a dramatic turnaround in Obama's fortunes among Hispanics. During the primary season, they voted overwhelmingly for Obama's rival, Senator Hillary Clinton. Some analysts at the time suggested a racial component to the trend, given friction and economic competition between Hispanics and African Americans for lower-paying jobs.

But the Pew survey finds only 11 percent of Hispanics view Obama's race as a detriment, while more than half say the fact that he is black makes no difference to them. A similar proportion said McCain's race is unimportant.

Labels: General Election 2008, Latino community, polls