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Esta página no está disponible en español. Kerry Stretches Lead Over Bush in Hispanic Bloc... Bush Support Among Hispanics Slipping, Poll Shows... Education Priority for Latinos
Kerry Stretches Lead Over Bush in Hispanic Bloc By LESLEY CLARK The Miami Herald July 25, 2004 Democrat John Kerry has widened his lead over President Bush among Hispanic voters nationwide, a finding that suggests Republicans have failed to gain traction within that critical constituency, according to a new poll. More than half of Hispanic voters gave the president a ''poor'' rating on his handling of the war in Iraq. An even greater majority believes the country is heading in the wrong direction. Results of The Herald/Zogby International Hispanic Poll come as both campaigns wage aggressive outreach efforts to woo the fast-growing voting bloc that has the potential to swing key battleground states like Florida, New Mexico and Arizona -- and help determine the next majority party. Kerry, who officially becomes the Democratic nominee at the party's convention in Boston this week, holds a 60 percent to 32 percent lead over President Bush among voters who identify themselves as Hispanic. Kerry gained two points since a similar poll in April -- within the poll's margin of error, but still a potential trouble spot for Bush, said pollster John Zogby, who conducted the survey of 1,003 likely voters. `CAUSE FOR CONCERN' ''Though it wasn't a huge movement, it went in the right direction for Kerry and the wrong direction for the president, enough to give the president cause for concern,'' Zogby said. The survey was conducted from July 15 to Tuesday and carries a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points. The poll comes as Bush has sought to shore up his standing among Cuban Americans, among his staunchest supporters, by imposing strict new restrictions on travel to Cuba. The survey detected no bounce for Bush and, along with a separate poll of likely Florida voters, suggests a backlash against the travel restrictions that could benefit Kerry. The poll of Florida voters released last Thursday found Bush at 57 percent among Hispanics in Florida, with Kerry at 38 percent. The margin of error for the size of the sample is in the double digits, but the results represent a decline for Bush from April, according to pollster Brad Coker, who surveyed 625 likely voters for the Mason-Dixon Florida poll. ''If anything, the crackdown has maybe created a problem that didn't exist before, because you have Cubans who are not really happy about it,'' Coker said. Bush narrowly won the White House in 2000, in part by siphoning away some of the traditionally Democratic Hispanic base and pulling 35 percent of its vote. Although Cuban Americans in South Florida are overwhelmingly Republican, Hispanics with roots in other parts of Latin America, including a burgeoning Puerto Rican community in Orlando, tend to vote Democratic. 40 PERCENT GOAL Bolstered by his showing in 2000, Bush is seeking to boost his standing among Hispanics to 40 percent this year. A spokesman for Bush's campaign said internal polling and other survey results suggest that the campaign is on track to reach its goal. ''All of the information that we have shows us doing six or seven points better than 2000,'' Bush spokesman Reed Dickens said. ``We feel that come November, voters will have a very clear choice.'' Both campaigns have made Hispanic outreach a priority, spending about $1 million each on Spanish-language advertising. Kerry's campaign last week launched a new Hispanic television ad that promises he will introduce an immigration reform act within 100 days of taking office. ''We're going to earn the Hispanic vote,'' said Antonio Villaraigosa, a Los Angeles city councilman and national co-chairman of the Kerry campaign. ``We've got a 19-point lead, but we're not taking anything for granted.'' The poll shows little wiggle room for either candidate, mirroring polls of all likely voters that show very few undecided voters. Just 6.5 percent of voters said they were not yet sure for whom they would vote. NADER DILEMMA Independent candidate Ralph Nader, however, continues to bedevil Democrats. According to the poll, although nearly half of Hispanics have a negative opinion of Nader, if he is on the ballot, he draws about 3 percent -- most of his support coming from the Kerry camp, a potential problem in an election that many polls suggest is neck and neck. The poll shows that the continuing turmoil in Iraq may be taking a toll on Bush's popularity among Hispanics. Less than half of Hispanic voters have a favorable opinion of Bush, and 64 percent believe ``it is time for someone new.'' In contrast, Kerry's favorable rating has remained at a strong 66 percent, despite Bush ads in Spanish that question the Massachusetts senator's voting record. Bush Support Among Hispanics Slipping, Poll Shows By PABLO BACHELET Reuters News July 22, 2004 WASHINGTON, DC -- President George W. Bush is trailing his Democratic challenger John Kerry by a big margin among potential Hispanic voters, according to a new survey of Latino attitudes toward politics released on Thursday. Kerry and his vice presidential choice, John Edwards, have the support of 62 percent of the Hispanics polled, while the Bush/Dick Cheney ticket has 32 percent support, according to a joint survey by The Pew Hispanic Center and the Kaiser Family Foundation. Bush, according to exit polls, got about 35 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2000, a key constituency which could decide the election in swing states like Florida and Arizona, both of which went narrowly to Bush. The survey polled 788 adults between July 12 and 20, and had a margin of error 3.5 percent. The results were released together with a separate poll of Latino attitudes toward politics, which showed Hispanics were generally skeptical on the war in Iraq, divided over the role of government and concerned with economic issues rather than immigration. Registered Hispanic voters ranked education as their top priority, with 54 percent saying the issue was extremely important in deciding their presidential vote, followed by the economy and jobs. Only 27 percent considered immigration - an issue often used to court Latino voters - as a major concern, ranking it eleventh overall, behind the federal budget deficit. President Bush has proposed a temporary work visa for between 8 and 12 million illegal immigrants, a move backed by 54 percent of the registered Latinos. But 83 percent supported a more ambitious proposal by Democrats, which would give the right to permanent residence to illegal immigrants who had spent a long time in the United States. Fully 56 percent of Hispanics disapproved of Bush's handling of the situation in Iraq, roughly mirroring sentiment among the overall U.S. population, the survey said. About 40 million Hispanics reside in the United States, with about seven or eight million expected to vote, according to Hispanic groups. Latinos who are registered to vote are better educated and more likely to use English as their primary language than their counterparts who are not U.S. citizens, according to the poll. The annual Pew Hispanic/Kaiser Family survey polled 2,288 Hispanics between April 21 and June 9, 2004, and had a margin of error of 2.83 percent. The margin of error for the smaller sample that was eligible to vote - 1,166 - was 4.18 percent. On Wednesday, another poll released by The Washington Post, the Univision Spanish language television network and the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute found that hispanic voters strongly favored Kerry. Asked who they would vote for if the November presidential election were held today, 60 percent said they would choose Kerry and 30 percent said Bush, according to the poll conducted from July 6 to 16.
Education Priority for Latinos by MICHAEL DOYLE Bee Washington Bureau The Modesto Bee July 23, 2004 WASHINGTON, DC -- Immigration ranks last among issues viewed as important by Latino voters, a new survey shows. Education trumped all issues. But immigration reform also trailed priorities such as health care, the war in Iraq and crime, according to the nationwide survey, which provided a list of issues for Latinos to rank. The snapshot of Latino opinion carries implications for the Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns. "The surprise, or maybe it's not a surprise, is that immigration ranks last among issues that Latinos pick as an issue that will decide their vote," said Roberto Suro, director of the Pew Hispanic Center. The nonpartisan center and the Kaiser Family Foundation prepared the survey of 2,228 Latino adults. It's part of a series of surveys conducted by the center, which is part of the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication. Consistent with past surveys, the latest telephone poll found Latinos are most likely to rank education as the issue that will be "extremely important" in determining their presidential votes. Fifty-four percent of those surveyed described education as extremely important, while 51 percent listed the economy or health care and 41 percent listed the war in Iraq. Immigration lagged far behind in 11th place, with only 27 percent of those surveyed saying the issue was extremely important in presidential voting. "I think among registered Latino voters, there is not the perception of a crisis," Suro said. "There's not the sense of something that's broken, that urgently needs to be fixed." Merced resident Linda Lopez, director of the Firebaugh Computer Learning Center, agreed that immigration reform lags as a political priority. Except, perhaps, among illegal immigrants who can't vote. "From the standpoint of Latinos who are citizens or legal residents, it may not be a concern," Lopez said. "They don't see it as an immediate need." A Democrat and one-time candidate for the Merced County Board of Supervisors, Lopez added that she's heartened by the fact that Latino voters increasingly "are not driven by one party or one party line." Latino voters increasing This is a subject of intense debate among national politicians competing for the fast-growing Latino electorate. Since the 2000 presidential election, the number of eligible Latino voters has increased about 20 percent, to roughly 16 million adults. Suro noted the increase isn't evenly distributed. More than half of the potential new Latino voters are in California, New York and Texas, none of which is regarded as a battleground state. Democrats, moreover, still hold a 2-to-1 registration advantage over Republicans among potential Latino voters. But with a third of potential Latino voters surveyed calling themselves independent or "other," neither party is taking them for granted. "We're polling over 40 percent (support) in the Hispanic community," Gerald Parsky, President Bush's campaign liaison in California, said this week. Preference for Bush's plan Immigration reform has been a recurring refrain in this fight. This week, Democratic presidential contender John Kerry began airing a 30-second Spanish-language television ad promising that "in his first 100 days as president, John Kerry will present a plan to reform immigration and help reunify families." Though immigration is a relatively low priority for Latino voters, the survey found, 84 percent do back a plan giving undocumented workers a chance to become U.S. citizens. As a senator, Kerry has co-sponsored the leading legislation that gives illegal aliens a track to legal residency. Bush sought his own immigration splash in January, announcing a proposal that would allow illegal aliens to work in this country but would not put them on a track to permanent residency or citizenship. Fifty-four percent of Latino voters backed this plan compared with the more ambitious plan supported by Kerry, the new survey shows. Bush all but dropped immigration reform as a topic of conversation after his much-publicized January event, and immigration legislation appears essentially dead for the year. A separate Pew Hispanic Center survey conducted this month shows that Kerry leads Bush by 62 percent to 32 percent among registered Latino voters in a two-way race.
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