Latino Voters Continues To Reject Obama
Posted by: Hector M. Barajas | 06/05/2008 12:13 PM
While Barack Obama transitions as the Democratic frontrunner to the presumptive nominee, Obama's greatest challenge will be trying to mobilize and galvanize the Latino vote.
This past Sunday, as Puertoricanos overwhelmingly cast their vote for Hillary Clinton in their Democratic presidential primary, the exit polls provided some troubling news for the Obama campaign.
In Sunday's election, Clinton won every single demographic group, including those that have powered the Obama campaign thus far. According to CNN's Puerto Rico exit polls, "Clinton won 70 percent of the male vote, 65 percent of the voters under 30, 70 percent of voters who attended college, and 66 percent of the voters with an income over $50,000." In addition, Clinton won "70% of female voters, 77 percent of those over 65, 69 percent who did not attend college, and 71 percent of the voters with an income of $15,000 or less."
On Tuesday, as Obama was making his historic speech, a national Gallup Poll reveled that among Latinas Obama lagged 30 percentage points behind Clinton (62% to 32%).
Obama's Latino troubles seemed to compound on Wednesday, when two senior congressional Latino members, Reps. Hilda Solis (D-CA) and Henry Cuellar (D-TX) noted, "Obama has his work cut out for him in reaching out to Hispanics, who may be attracted to Republican nominee Sen. John McCain for his compromise work on immigration reform. 'This is not something (Obama) can have surrogates do. This is something he needs to do himself,' [Cuellar] said."
Obama should not expect Latinos to coalesce around him just because he is the nominee. It will take a lot more than Obama's smile and flashy speech to win over the hearts and minds of our Latinos, in just 5 months.
This past Sunday, as Puertoricanos overwhelmingly cast their vote for Hillary Clinton in their Democratic presidential primary, the exit polls provided some troubling news for the Obama campaign.
In Sunday's election, Clinton won every single demographic group, including those that have powered the Obama campaign thus far. According to CNN's Puerto Rico exit polls, "Clinton won 70 percent of the male vote, 65 percent of the voters under 30, 70 percent of voters who attended college, and 66 percent of the voters with an income over $50,000." In addition, Clinton won "70% of female voters, 77 percent of those over 65, 69 percent who did not attend college, and 71 percent of the voters with an income of $15,000 or less."
On Tuesday, as Obama was making his historic speech, a national Gallup Poll reveled that among Latinas Obama lagged 30 percentage points behind Clinton (62% to 32%).
Obama's Latino troubles seemed to compound on Wednesday, when two senior congressional Latino members, Reps. Hilda Solis (D-CA) and Henry Cuellar (D-TX) noted, "Obama has his work cut out for him in reaching out to Hispanics, who may be attracted to Republican nominee Sen. John McCain for his compromise work on immigration reform. 'This is not something (Obama) can have surrogates do. This is something he needs to do himself,' [Cuellar] said."
Obama should not expect Latinos to coalesce around him just because he is the nominee. It will take a lot more than Obama's smile and flashy speech to win over the hearts and minds of our Latinos, in just 5 months.
The 'Clinton' loans were done long before this mess & would have had a significant impact long ago...
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The VP selection is especially critical this year.
Obama's choice of Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson (ret) for his 3 member VP selection committee (Johnson helped Democratic Presidential Candidates Mondale & Kerry select the VP's for their losing campaigns) - does not say a lot for Obama's judgement on this matter.
McCain sounded good tuesday night - if can keep that energy & positive tone through-out the campaign, & if he can select a helpful, conservative VP candidate, he could be very strong.
Bob Barr needs a big personality for his VP slot to see if he can garner any attention at all.
Vaya con Dios.
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So this poll that was released this month by PPIC is wrong.
http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/survey/S_308MBS.pdf
It shows among likely Latino Voters it was
70% Obama 20% McCain 7% someone else 3% Don't know
74% Clinton 18% McCain 3% Someone else 5% Don't know
See pg 27
It is amazing what a few months, a few barbs, and a lot of attack ads will do to people’s views and preferences.
In the Field Poll, May 30, 2008:
22% of Clinton supporters said “they would not be likely to vote for the rival Democrat in the general election if their choice does not win the nomination.”
Table 1: “Who Democratic party voters in California would now like to see as the party’s nominee for President”: only 29% of Latinos chose Obama.
In the Sunday, June 1 CNN Exit Poll: only 28% of Latinos chose Obama.