The Latino demographic has become a force to reckon with at the election polls, they’re support was key in an Obama victory in crucial swing states. Florida, Colorado, and Nevada all showed a growth in Latino support for the Democratic candidates providing key votes for Obama proving to be decisive. Hit the jump for more.
PaulDaPro
As Chuck Todd, political director for NBC, put it the day after the election: “The story of the election is demographics.” And there is no bigger part of that demographic story than the rise of Hispanics as a political force.
The lesson some Republicans are gleaning as they sift through the results is that the GOP simply needs to embrace a friendlier set of policies on immigration. That’s certainly a big part of their problem — but if they truly want to loosen the Democrats’ grip on Latinos, they must realize that this necessary step is insufficient.
Consider that in the early 1990s, Hispanics were a mere 2% of voters. This election they clocked in at 10%. It’s a figure that will likely rise by a percentage point or more with every presidential election cycle.
And in this election, Latinos supported Obama by 44 points, 71% to 27%, compared to a “mere” 67% to 31% in 2008. This is the main reason Obama was able to maintain his overall support level of 80% among minority voters. This was huge, since the minority share of voters went up 2 points to 28%.
That put Romney in such a hole that he would have needed a 25-point margin among white voters to prevail in the popular vote. His actual margin of 20 points fell far short.
