Everyone agrees the importance of the Latino vote in this year’s close election all boils down to one thing: turnout. While the conventional wisdom has been that Latinos are not as enthusiastic about the election as in 2008, this is not what a new impreMedia-Latino Decisions tracking poll has found.
“It looks like the “Sleeping Giant” has woken up,” stated Monica Lozano, CEO of impreMedia. “The poll shows that this year we can anticipate record participation among Latino voters.”
The new poll finds 87 percent of Hispanics say they are almost certain they will vote, including 8 percent of Latinos who have already cast their ballots through early voting. ”Eight percent of Latinos is about a million voters, that’s a pretty big deal,” says Gabriel Sanchez, a University of New Mexico political scientist.
What is more, the poll finds voter enthusiasm is going up – 45 percent of Hispanics say they are more enthusiastic about voting in this election than in 2008, and this number has increased in the last ten weeks, when the number was 37 percent. In 2008, 84 percent of registered Latinos voted, according to the Census.
Overall, President Obama is favored by 73 percent of all Latino registered voters, compared to 21 percent for Romney. According to the poll, this 52-point gap matches the largest gap among Latinos this year, also found in the October 1 tracking poll. However, with a week (and a big storm in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, to boot) left for the election, a good number of Latino voters are pessimistic about the candidates’ abilities to break through the Congressional impasse and logjam.
