Obama Has 45 Point Lead Among Latinos In New Poll

The latest  NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll confirms yet again that President Obama is going to trounce Mitt Romney among Latino voters:

Hispanic voters continue to say they prefer President Obama by wide margins over Republican nominee Mitt Romney amid signs that the race is
tightening among the broader electorate, according to new data in a NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Telemundo poll.

Obama leads Romney 70 percent to 25 percent among likely Latino voters (and 69 percent to 23 percent among registered voters), a slight uptick for Romney from the 70 percent to 25 percent lead the president held a month ago.

But Latino enthusiasm has ticked up since last month, up from its lows earlier this cycle but still not yet on par with Latino enthusiasm for Obama in 2008.

More Hispanics than last month said they are either a 9 or 10 (on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the lowest) on a measure of their enthusiasm for this election. Sixty-eight percent of likely Latino voters rated their enthusiasm at that level, up from 59 percent last month. But that is off from the 76 percent who said they were in that highest-interest group at this time four years ago. And it is below the 76 percent who are 9s and 10s in the wider NBC/WSJ poll.

(…)

There were some drops for the president, however. His approval rating is still very strong at 66 percent, but it’s down from the sky-high 73 percent he enjoyed last month. On the economy, Obama’s approval declined slightly from 66 percent to 61 percent. And even his favorability saw a small decline from 74 percent positive last month to 69 percent this month.

The problem for Romney, however, continues to involve a severe image problem with Hispanics. A solid majority – 57 percent – of Hispanic voters said they had a negative view of the former Massachusetts governor, while just a quarter – 26 percent – had a positive impression of Romney.

In fact, almost half – 45 percent - had a “very negative” impression of Romney, up from 35 percent last month.

Because of the smaller sample size, the Margin of Error is larger than is typical for polls, +/- 6.8 percent among likely voters and +/- 5.7 percent among registered voters, but that doesn’t really discount the impact of these results at all. If it weren’t for the enthusiasm issue, it’s likely that President Obama would be doing much better in states such as Nevada and Colorado. If his campaign can figure out a way to get Latinos to the polls in the next two weeks, though, then it would be a very big help for them in those and other states.

FILED UNDER: 2012 Election, Public Opinion Polls, Race and Politics, US Politics, , , , , , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. JeffC says:

    so Obama is down at least 6 points among Latinos compared to 2008 … seems to be a theme across the board … seniors, the young, jews, women, men … all down and by double digits in some cases …

    that anyone ever considered you a conservative is amazing …

  2. Geek, Esq. says:

    Query: Is it that President Obama isn’t doing as well as he should in CO and NV, or is it that public polls aren’t capturing how well he’s doing?

    Democrats have strongly overperformed the likely voter polls in NV for the past two election cycles–with the difference being attributed to superior ground game and underestimating the Latino vote. And the ground game factor has only gotten stronger on behalf of the Democrats–the Democrats have the Harry Reid machine and OFA, whereas the Republicans have a state party taken over by the Ronulans.

  3. C. Clavin says:

    “…If his campaign can figure out a way to get Latinos to the polls in the next two weeks, though, then it would be a very big help for them in those and other states…”

    Brilliant insight.
    If Obama can motivate everyone who isn’t a rich old xenophobic white guy to vote, he might win.

  4. Jr says:

    @C. Clavin: Yeah, this nothing new.

    Obama gets his base to the polls, he wins. We knew this as early as January 21st, 2009.

  5. Tsar Nicholas says:

    Oddly enough Latinos in Florida apparently disagree strongly with this meme.

    Speaking of which, if Romney wins this thing one of the more, um, surreal components of the left-wing chattering classes’ reaction spin cycle — assuming they don’t all go full Jonestown and simply kill themselves en masse — will be watching liberals try to explain exactly how Obama could have had such an overwhelming lead with the Latino demographic but yet somehow managed not only to lose Florida (now a given) but also either to lose or to come within such hairs’ breadths of losing states like Colorado and Nevada.

    Think about it. Florida is one of the most Latino-heavy states. Yet Romney not only will prevail there he might even top W. Bush’s margin from ’04.

    Colorado and Nevada are two of the most Latino-heavy states. And last time around Obama prevailed in each of them by overwhelming landslide margins. Yet this time around even the media polling has Romney statistically tied or in the case of Colorado ahead. How is that possible? How could Obama be up 45 points among the Latino demographic but not far out in front in places like Colorado and Nevada? And we haven’t even mentioned Texas. Shouldn’t that contest be within double digits? Within 15 points?

    And here’s the $64k question, about which the likes of Judis and Teixeira cognitively would be dissonant: If one pushes away the white vote in one’s zeal to claim the Latino vote does it really accomplish anything? Is it something over which the left truly should be proud?

  6. MBunge says:

    @Tsar Nicholas: “If one pushes away the white vote in one’s zeal to claim the Latino vote does it really accomplish anything?”

    That’s exactly the opposite of what’s happened. It is the GOP that has actively pushed away the Latino vote in order to pander to white voters.

    Mike

  7. C. Clavin says:

    @ Tsar…

    “…Think about it. Florida is one of the most Latino-heavy states….”

    Yes…I suggest you think about it.
    Why might that be?

  8. DC Loser says:

    “They all speak Spanish?”

  9. al-Ameda says:

    Democrats should take out full pages ads nationwide and thank Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Governor Jan Brewer for their get efforts in getting out the Latino/Hispanic Democratic Vote in 2012.

  10. Scott O says:

    @JeffC: so Obama Romney is down at least 6 points among Latinos compared to 2008

    FIFY

    “Nationwide, Hispanics voted 67 percent for Mr. Obama and 31 percent for Senator John McCain, according to Edison/Mitofsky exit polls.”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/us/politics/07latino.html?_r=0

  11. superdestroyer says:

    At least no one proposed that the Republicans support open borders and unlimited immigration in order to get 1/3 of the future voters.

    Of course, no one every points out that more than 50% of Latino children born in 2012 will be born to single mothers. How does the more conservative party ever appeal to such a demographic group. Does anyone believe that the more conservative party will ever be able to appeal to a demographic were roughly 20% drop out of high school? Does anyone really believe that a demographic group that commits felonies at three time the rates of whites is ever going to vote for the more conservative party.

    What people should be think about, instead of the irrelevant Republcians, is what happens when more than 50% of the voters in the U.S. are automatic Democratic Party voters.

  12. Barry says:

    @Tsar Nicholas: “Oddly enough Latinos in Florida apparently disagree strongly with this meme.”

    Cu-ban