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Obama, McCain Compete in Wooing Hispanic Voters

By Ralph Dannheisser

Hispanics, a rapidly growing segment of the U.S. population, could play a deciding role in a close presidential election, and campaigns are making enormous efforts to attract those potential voters and turn them out on Election Day. Efforts range from speeches delivered before major Hispanic organizations, to creation of new Spanish-language campaign Web sites, to huge budgets for advertising - mainly television spots - aimed at Hispanic voters.

Hispanics now account for some 9 percent of the U.S. electorate and are the nation's fastest-growing minority group. A U.S. Census Bureau report released August 14 projects their numbers will nearly triple by the year 2050, to about one-third of the population.

Currently, their uneven dispersion throughout the country gives them a potentially key role in political "swing" states like Florida, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico. Savvy activists representing more than 100 grassroots Hispanic organizations announced plans in July to register 2 million new voters in 2008.

That drive could affect even states without large Hispanic populations. An August 11 analysis by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported efforts by Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain to reach Hispanics "could be pivotal in Midwestern states - Wisconsin, Iowa and Ohio among them - where the election could be decided by just a few percentage points."

Both Obama and McCain spoke in July at the annual convention of the National Council of La Raza, a major Hispanic advocacy group. That marked the third time in 15 days each had appeared before a national Latino organization. Both emphasized education, health care and housing, along with immigration reform and other border issues.

"Make no mistake about it: the Latino community holds this election in your hands," Obama told La Raza.

Both campaigns are using the Internet to reach Hispanic voters. Republicans launched a Spanish-language section on their convention Web site. Content on www.gopconvention2008.com/enespanol will include live, gavel-to-gavel convention coverage. Democrats will offer Spanish streaming of their convention via their Web site, www.demconvention.com/es and, in partnership with Comcast and Entravision, will make their feed available to television stations in 20 major Hispanic markets and to 48 radio stations.

CAMPAIGN BUDGETS FOR SPANISH-LANGUAGE OUTREACH UNPRECEDENTED

Adam Segal, director of the Hispanic Voter Project at Johns Hopkins University, reported in April that Democratic presidential primary candidates had poured at least $4 million - a record amount - into Spanish-language advertising on Univision and Telemundo. Spending on primaries in Pennsylvania and Puerto Rico would raise the total further, he said. Republican primary candidates also aired Spanish-language ads, and McCain has released general election spots in Spanish.

These expenditures likely will be dwarfed by massive spending in the run-up to the November election: the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee have earmarked $20 million to target and mobilize Hispanic voters. Efforts, although nationwide, will focus on four key swing states, officials said in July. Spending will be channeled into advertising, online organizing and voter registration, as well as adding staff in key states and training some 500 Latino organizers, they said.

Hopkins' Segal called the announced $20 million program "absolutely historic." In previous elections, he told America.gov, Democrats "have spent millions and millions of dollars in reaching out to African-American voters, and it's been very successful. The idea here is that maybe they can replicate that by turning out historic numbers of Hispanic voters."

He said that even though the McCain camp also plans to spend "millions of dollars" on courting Hispanics, it has announced no specific figures and its effort does not appear comparable to that of the Democrats. "Most of the spots that have been released by the McCain campaign have been Web videos," Segal notes. "They're not investing a lot of money in [placing] TV advertising right now. They're not going to be able to compete at the same level this cycle."

Univision officials say they expect to obtain up to $20 million in political ads in the second half of 2008. Officials of Entravision are less specific, but are quoted by Bloomberg.com as saying that campaign advertising will "come fast and furious."

Overall, Segal said, "there's more money in the system than ever before, for better or for worse - and for the Hispanic community that's obviously for better, because it means that much more will be spent to mobilize them."

Both sides are working hard to enlist new voters. Existing voting patterns suggest that bringing in more Hispanics would give a bigger boost to Obama. A survey released July 24 by the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group, showed that Hispanic voters already registered favor Obama over McCain by 66 percent to 23 percent.

Those numbers reflect a strong rebound for the Democrats from 2004, when President Bush captured about 40 percent of the Latino vote - a record for Republican presidential candidates. His campaign manager, Ken Mehlman, called that "the single most important number" emerging from the election.

"Not only is the Hispanic population growing, but the Hispanic vote is growing as a percentage of the overall national electorate. That's quite significant, and it's going to benefit Obama this year, in a year where the Democrats have a significant advantage," Segal said. But, he stressed, "the competition will be fierce for undecided Hispanic voters, who may help sway a close election."

Source: U.S. Department of State