PRINCETON, NJ (By Jeffrey M. Jones,
Gallup) July 2, 2008 ― Hispanic
registered voters' support for
Barack Obama for president remained
consistent and strong in June, with
Obama leading John McCain by 59% to
29% among this group.
While Hispanics generally preferred
Hillary Clinton to Obama for the
Democratic presidential nomination,
a solid majority of Hispanics have
consistently backed Obama against
McCain in general-election trial
heats. Obama has led McCain by about
a 2-to-1 margin since Gallup began
tracking general-election voting
preferences in early March.
Gallup has interviewed more than
4,000 Hispanic registered voters
during this time period. An analysis
of candidate support by subgroup
within the U.S. Hispanic electorate
reveals that many of the
well-established divisions in this
year's campaign ― such as the gender
gap and the marriage gap ― are weak
or nonexistent among Hispanic
voters.
Rather, Hispanics of differing
demographic backgrounds all tend to
solidly support Obama. It thus
appears that there isn't much beyond
a shared Hispanic ethnicity or
identity that explains Hispanic
voting patterns.
Perhaps the only exceptions to this
general pattern come among the
minority of Hispanic voters who
identify themselves as Republicans
(18%) or who say they have
conservative political views (36%).
McCain leads Obama among Hispanic
Republicans, and is about even with
him among Hispanic conservatives.
In
an election pitting one of the
younger recent presidential
candidates against one of the older
ones, candidate preferences by age
group have varied. Differences in
the Hispanic vote by age, however,
are fairly small. While younger
Hispanic voters show greater support
for Obama than for McCain, support
for McCain increases only slightly
among older Hispanics.
The
accompanying table shows how McCain
and Obama compare within various
subgroups of Hispanics.
Implications
Some political experts assumed
Obama's struggle to attract
widespread Hispanic support in the
primaries would carry over into the
general-election campaign against
the Republican candidate. But
Hispanics have become a reliable
Democratic voting bloc, and have so
far shown little difficulty in
transferring their loyalties from
Clinton to Obama. Obama continues to
lead McCain by about a 2-to-1 margin
among Hispanic voters, as he has
since March. Hispanic voters could
be crucial in key swing states such
as New Mexico, Colorado, and
Florida.
While George W. Bush made a strong
push for the Hispanic vote in the
2000 and 2004 elections, McCain
faces an uphill climb to attract
Hispanics' support, given their
consistent and solid support for
Obama in recent months.
