The rivalry between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama is a turning point, said Simon Rosenberg, president of the New Democrat Network, which studies Hispanic voting. "Hispanics have arrived as a major force. This is now a permanent condition of American politics in the 21st century," he said.

Clinton, the New York senator and former first lady, has a 16-year history of working with Hispanics and began laying the groundwork with them for her presidential run in late 2006. Obama, the Illinois senator, started a push for Hispanic votes last month as Feb. 5 primaries neared in several states with large Hispanic voting blocs.

Obama won 26% of the Hispanic vote in the Nevada caucuses Jan. 20, compared with 64% for Clinton.

In states this week where at least 10% of voters were Hispanic, his share ranged from 26% in Clinton's home state of New York to 50% in his own home state of Illinois, surveys of voters leaving the polls showed. In California, where three in 10 voters were Hispanic, his 32% share was an improvement on earlier polls but not enough to help him win.

Republican candidates did not have a high-profile competition for Hispanics. In California they were 13% of the electorate.

Obama was boosted in the days before Super Tuesday by endorsements from Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy and Southern California's La Opinión, the largest Spanish-language daily newspaper in the USA. He also made points in a debate at which he reaffirmed his support for driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants and refused to blame them for joblessness among blacks.

On Wednesday, Obama said he has made "enormous progress" among Hispanics and will do better as he becomes more familiar. "It's just a matter of us getting more information to them," he said in Chicago. "As Hispanic voters get to know me … they realize I'm somebody who's going to be battling for all people, including Hispanic voters."

Still, several analysts say Obama was late to ramp up his appeal to Hispanics, and it cost him in Nevada and California. "You have to ask Hispanics for their vote and not just assume you have their vote because you share this common history of oppression," said Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta.

Obama introduced himself in Feb. 5 states with a Spanish-language television ad just days before Super Tuesday. Matt Barreto, an expert on Hispanic politics at the University of Washington, said Obama made far less use of Spanish-language radio in the Southwest. "That was a huge mistake. It is a very powerful medium," he said.

Texas is the only remaining primary with a major Hispanic component, on March 4. Rosenberg and others said Obama needs to introduce himself, talk about his views on immigration and his plans to help struggling workers, and generally signal that he cares. "This is no longer about sending surrogates. He's got to make the case himself," Rosenberg said.

Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor rejected the notion that the campaign got a late start, noting the primary season is "sequential" and outreach to Hispanics in the first contest, in Iowa, helped Obama win a key victory.

Analysts give many reasons for Clinton's dominance in this group:

• She has a famous name, a long history with the community and a husband who put many Hispanics in his Cabinet and administration.

• Her focus on economic nuts and bolts may have had more appeal to Hispanics than Obama's "change" message. "This population is very blue-collar," says Roberto Suro, a University of Southern California professor and former head of the Pew Hispanic Center. That puts them squarely within the lower-income, less educated demographic Clinton has dominated in primaries to date.

• Blue-collar Hispanics are less likely to know of Obama. "People who hear about a challenger tend to be higher educated individuals" who watch news and use the Web, said Rodolfo Espino, a political scientist at Arizona State University.

• In California, Suro said, Clinton started lining up endorsements and making appearances as far back as 2006. On Tuesday, she had help getting out the vote from many elected officials with effective political organizations, including Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

All the analysts dismissed the idea that Obama is lagging because Hispanics are reluctant to vote for blacks. Barreto said there's very little evidence of that. To the contrary, black mayors Harold Washington of Chicago, David Dinkins of New York, Wellington Webb of Denver and Ron Kirk of Dallas all received overwhelming Hispanic support when they were elected to office.

Obama's own career is another example, Barreto said: In his 2004 Senate primary, Obama won more Hispanic votes than Hispanic candidate Gerry Chico.

In 2008, for Obama, "it's a name-recognition thing," Barreto said. "It's an outreach thing."