Poll: Hispanic voters overwhelmingly support Obama over GOP contenders
WASHINGTON – President Obama is well positioned to repeat his strong performance with Hispanic voters one year before the 2012 election, according to a new Univision News/Latino Decisions poll.
In head-to-head matchups with the top three GOP presidential candidates, Obama holds substantial leads that exceed a two-to-one margin in every case. Latino voters prefer Obama 67 percent to 24 percent over Mitt Romney, 65 percent to 22 percent over Herman Cain, and 68 percent to 21 percent over Rick Perry.
The president garnered more than two-thirds of the Hispanic vote in the 2008 presidential election. But as the Latino community has struggled with high unemployment rates in recent years, some Democrats worried that Hispanic support for Obama might dissipate.
Not surprisingly, the economy ranks as the top issue for Latino voters, the survey found. But immigration could still be a decisive factor for some: More than half of respondents said they were less likely to back a candidate with a favorable economic plan but who did not favor a pathway to citizenship.
Some Republicans believe their party’s path to replicating the 2004 election – when George W. Bush won 43 percent of the Hispanic vote – has been tainted by GOP candidates who continue taking a hard-line stance against illegal immigration in an effort to attract conservative voters. While it might play well in the primaries, critics contend, it could cost Republicans in the general election, when the Latino vote could prove critical.
Fifty-three percent of Hispanic voters said they identified with Democrats when asked which party was closer to their position on immigration, while only 15 percent said they identified with Republicans.
The poll was conducted in the 21 states with the largest Hispanic populations in the United States, where 95 percent of the country’s Latinos reside, according to Univision.
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