Hispanics could put Obama over the top

The overlooked demographic could be the Democrat's key to western states

By Chuck Todd
Political Director, NBC News
updated Mon., Oct. 27, 2008

WASHINGTON - If Barack Obama goes on to win the election, there will be plenty of ink and video spent on chronicling the historic nature of the turnout among young voters and African-Americans.

But as important as both constituencies have been to Obama — particularly in the primaries — it's Hispanics that could be putting him over the top on Nov. 4.

Obama's dominance among Hispanics in the West is proving to be the difference maker in Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico. In addition, the increased numbers of non-Cuban Hispanics in Florida, as well as the growing Hispanic population in North Carolina and Virginia, could be the tipping voting group in those three states.

So how did this happen? When this general election began, there were three pieces of evidence cited to develop the conventional wisdom that Obama would under-perform with Hispanics:

• He lost Hispanics by very wide margins to Hillary Clinton in the primaries.
• John McCain's efforts to fight his party on the issue of immigration, in addition to his Southwestern political roots, would win him votes with Hispanics.
• Hispanics are perceived to be hesitant to vote for black candidates. Of course, there was only anecdotal evidence of this phenomenon in a few big city mayoral contests.

(More here.)