McCain losing big with Latinos

By: David Paul Kuhn
The Politico
July 24, 2008

John McCain is winning a paltry 23 percent of the Hispanic vote compared with 66 percent for Barack Obama, according to a large poll released Thursday by the Pew Hispanic Center.

While Obama’s lead among Hispanics is not drastically ahead of where Democratic nominee John Kerry stood in the summer of 2004, McCain trails President Bush’s standing at this point four years ago.

At that time, Pew found that Hispanics broke 62 percent for Kerry and 32 percent for Bush. Exit polls later found that Bush earned the support of about four in 10 Latino voters.

That difference — from Hispanics breaking 2-to-1 for Democrats to nearly 3-to-1 today — is enough to send shockwaves through GOP circles. Republicans had hoped that McCain’s politically risky support for immigration reform, which infuriated many conservatives, would offer a unique opportunity to bring Hispanic voters back to the party fold.

“That number should be very, very sobering for the McCain campaign,” said Tony Fabrizio, the pollster for 1996 Republican nominee Bob Dole. “The bottom line: Despite all of this positioning he’s taken on immigration, it’s shielded him nothing with Hispanics and it’s another point of distrust with Republicans.”

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