Latino Support for Democrats Drops a Bit, Poll Says

New York Times

By Julia Preston

October 29, 2014

Latino Support for Democrats Drops a Bit, Poll Says 

With the immigration debate in Washington frozen, support for Democrats among Latinos has declined slightly going into the midterm elections next week, but they still heavily favor Democrats over Republicans, according to a national bilingual poll released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center.

The biggest change was among Latinos with no party preference, with 35 percent of registered Latino voters saying that neither party was particularly concerned about them. During the 2012 election cycle, that number was 23 percent.

In the poll, 57 percent of Latino voters said they would vote for a Democratic congressional candidate this year, and 28 percent said they would vote for a Republican. In a similar Pew poll before the 2010 midterms, Latinos said they would vote 65 percent for Democrats and 22 percent for Republicans.

Latino voters are impatient for Congress to pass an overhaul of the immigration system, with two-thirds saying they want to see legislation soon, according to the poll. This year, the Republican-led House did not take up a bill passed in 2013 by the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats. And President Obama twice delayed executive action he had promised on reducing deportations.

Democrats hope blunt ads being distributed in Southern states like Arkansas and Georgia will draw more black voters to the polls.

Latinos are spreading the blame around a little more evenly this year, with 45 percent of voters saying Republicans are responsible for the failure of legislation, and 34 percent are faulting President Obama or Democrats in Congress.

There were other signs of possible openings for Republicans who court Latinos on issues other than immigration. In the survey, 54 percent said they would vote for a candidate who disagreed with them on immigration but agreed with them on issues like education and jobs.

At the same time, the White House does not seem to be suffering terribly from the president’s delays. Only about one-third of Latino voters said they were angry or disappointed with the president over the delays, and 26 percent said they were pleased.

A campaign event for Senator Mark Udall of Colorado in Thornton, Colo., on Saturday. Groups leaning toward both Republicans and Democrats have been working to gain Latino votes here.

Also, by 56 percent to 35 percent, Hispanics said that work permits and protection from deportation were more important to them than legislation opening a pathway to citizenship. Those results suggest Mr. Obama could regain some of his standing with those voters if he took measures to expand deportation protections after the election.

One question deep in the survey suggests why immigration continues to be a pressing issue for Latinos. One-quarter of the registered voters in the poll said they knew someone who had been detained by the immigration authorities or deported in the past year.

Over all, the Pew poll finds that Latino interest this year is about the same as the midterm elections in 2010, with about 50 percent of registered voters saying they are certain to vote, almost 20 percentage points lower than Americans in general.

But because the Latino population is growing rapidly, the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials has estimated that a record number of 7.8 million Latinos will turn out to vote this year, an increase of more than 1.2 million over the 2010 midterms. Latino voter organizations have been working in several states with close governor’s or Senate races to register voters and get them to the polls.

In Georgia, voter groups have registered more than 7,000 newly naturalized citizens over the past year, said Jerry Gonzalez, the executive director of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials. Latinos are now about 4 percent of the Georgia electorate, enough to sway the vote if the Senate race remains close between Michelle Nunn, a Democrat, and David Perdue, a Republican.

In Florida, Latino groups have registered more than 128,000 new voters this year, according to Maria Rodriguez, a leader of the Florida Immigrant Coalition. In Colorado, where the Senate and governor’s races are close, groups leaning toward both Republicans and Democrats have been working to gain Latino votes.

Organizers have called on Hispanics to build their voting numbers even if they are frustrated by the lack of progress on their issues. “The only way we can guarantee that promises to us are kept is by increasing our political power,” said Ben Monterroso, the executive director of Mi Familia Vota (My Family Votes).

The Pew poll, based on a national telephone survey in English and Spanish from Sept. 11 through Oct. 9, was conducted with 733 Hispanic adults who said they were registered to vote. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus five percentage points.

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