Blog
McCain’s Hispanic difficulty
18th July 2008
Earlier this summer I wrote an article for tutor2u’s first past the post magazine entitled ‘Raw Hispanic Power?’ which spotlighted the potential role Hispanics could play in this year’s presidential contest. This week’s Economist contains a story which updates us on how John McCain and Barack Obama are doing in courting the Hispanic vote
I wrote:
‘Commentators have suggested that the candidate that captures the Hispanic vote will capture the presidency.
They make up 43% of New Mexico, 35% of both Texas and California, 23% of Nevada, and 19% of Colorado and Florida. Note that George Bush carried New Mexico, Florida, Nevada and Colorado by less than 5% in 2004, meaning that several states with large Hispanic populations could decide the electoral college in 2008.’
From the Economist article, it appears that the Republican candidate is not doing so well:
‘These days pollsters put Mr Obama 30 points ahead of Mr McCain among Hispanic voters. Largely because of them, he has opened a small lead in Colorado and New Mexico (plus a huge one in solidly Democratic California). Latinos have even helped Mr Obama close to within ten points in the Republican redoubt of Texas. Mr McCain had the chance to reverse the slide this week—the third time in just over a fortnight that he had addressed a big Hispanic organisation. He not only failed to do so, but at times seemed to concede the Latino vote. “I know many of you are Democrats, regrettably,” he told 2,000 listeners in San Diego.’