Obama’s Latino Edge

If Sen. Barack Obama wins Florida, one key reason will be his apparently strong performance among Latinos in the state. According to exit polls, Obama won 57 percent of Florida’s Hispanic vote, compared to 42 percent for Sen. John McCain, says Fernand Amandi of Bendixen & Associates, Obama’s Hispanic polling firm. That marks the first time in memory that a Democrat has carried the state’s Latino vote. In 2004, the numbers were almost exactly the reverse; Sen. John Kerry won 44 percent, compared to President George W. Bush’s 56 percent. As Sergio Bendixen told NEWSWEEK earlier this year, “if [Obama] gets 55 percent [of Florida’s Latino vote], then he would pretty much [be assured of] winning the state.” If the exit polls are to be trusted (and that’s a big if, considering how unreliable they proved in 2004), Obama’s narrow lead in Florida could be largely explained by this significant shift of the state’s Latino electorate.

A number of factors explain Obama’s apparent success with Florida’s Latinos. For one thing, the state’s mix of Hispanic voters has been rapidly changing. In 2000, Cuban-Americans--who lean heavily Republican--accounted for about 70 percent of the state’s Hispanic electorate. This year, they’re likely to represent less than 50 percent. The reason: a huge influx of Central and South Americans in South Florida and a ballooning Puerto Rican population in the Orlando area. Most of these groups tend to favor Democrats. But Obama also apparently managed to peel away a sizable chunk of Cuban-American votes. According to exit polls, says Amandi, Obama captured 35 percent of Cuban-American voters--nearly doubling Kerry’s take in 2004 and matching Bill Clinton’s strong performance in 1996. “The reason Obama will win Dade County with a 150,000-vote lead is the overwhelming support of non-Cuban Hispanics and an unprecedented number of Cubans,” says Amandi.

The Latino numbers nationally are even more impressive for Obama. Exit polls show him winning the overall Hispanic vote 68 percent to 30 percent--outperforming Kerry by 10 points--and winning 85 percent of the Mexican-American vote nationally. That’s a big reason why he apparently captured huge margins in Western states like California--where the polling shows him beating McCain among Latinos 80 percent to 20 percent-and Nevada, where Obama apparently won among such voters 75 percent to 25 percent.

Obama benefited from widespread Latino disgruntlement with the Bush administration over the economic crisis and the war in Iraq. He also capitalized on broader Hispanic resentment at the GOP, which has come to be viewed by many Latinos as an anti-immigrant party because of some Republicans’ strident rhetoric on illegal aliens. Just as important, though, the Obama campaign put together a muscular Latino outreach that targeted Hispanics in critical swing states like Florida, Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado. Frank Sanchez, Obama’s national chair for Hispanic finance, says the campaign has spent more than $20 million on ads and organizational efforts targeting Latinos.

Obama’s appeal to Hispanics was apparent on Election Day in Florida. Yudelka Lopez, 40, a Dominican who became a citizen only three years ago, cast her first presidential vote ever for Obama at a polling station in Hialeah Gardens, near Miami. As she sees it, Obama cares more about the poor and will try harder to help them. Plus, “I want a change,” she says. In her eyes, he’s the one to make it happen.