Poll Finds Latinos Favor Democrats

If the presidential election were held today, Latinos across the nation would favor a Democrat over a Republican by nearly a 2-1 margin, according to a poll released Friday.

The survey, conducted for the Los Angeles-based Spanish-language TV network Univision, underscored the challenge facing the eventual GOP nominee in capturing the increasing Latino vote in California and other states.

The poll was released at a Univision-sponsored conference that focused on growing efforts within both major parties to court the Latino vote. “In every election from now and into the future, the Latino vote will increase in importance,” said Henry G. Cisneros, chief operating officer of Univision and former Housing and Urban Development secretary in the Clinton administration.

Cisneros, a Democrat, said that, despite the poll findings, Texas Gov. George W. Bush and his brother Florida Gov. Jeb Bush demonstrated with their strong election victories last November that Republicans who make “active and earnest” efforts among Latino voters can win a solid share of their votes.

The Univision poll also found that Latinos identified crime and drugs, education and economic opportunity as the issues they care about most--and at levels higher than the national average.

The conference came on the heels of a U.S. Census Bureau projection: By 2005, Latinos will be the largest minority group in the nation.

That number alone helps explain why Vice President Al Gore, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, and George W. Bush, the leading GOP candidate, sprinkle their campaign speeches to Latino audiences with Spanish phrases. Just this week, Gore tossed in Spanish phrases while addressing the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in San Diego. And it is why Democratic National Committee Chairman Roy Romer and Republican National Committee Chairman Jim Nicholson were among those attending Friday’s conference.

“We Republicans intend to work for the Hispanic vote,” Nicholson said.

Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) cautioned that it will take more than speaking Spanish to win Latino votes. “Don’t think you can just say como se llama [What is your name?] and you automatically make a connection. It still takes speaking to the issues that we are interested in.”

The telephone survey of 502 Latinos in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami and Houston was conducted Sept. 2-9 by Democratic pollster Mark Penn and Republican strategist and former President Reagan aide Michael K. Deaver. It made no mention of the candidates by name.

It found that, as of now, Latinos would vote for a Democrat over a Republican, 66% to 34%.

A separate poll, released Friday by the nonpartisan William C. Velasquez Institute, found that Gore led Bush, 49% to 24%, among 504 Latino registered voters in California, with the remainder undecided. The poll was taken July 23 to Aug. 8.

A Los Angeles Times Poll conducted among California Latino voters in June also found Gore ahead of Bush, but by a smaller margin: 54% to 37%.

Bush’s performance in both polls was an improvement over the showing of the 1996 Republican nominee, Bob Dole. According to Times exit polls, the former Kansas senator won only 18% of the California Latino vote, as President Clinton easily carried the state.

In Bush’s home state of Texas, the Velasquez Institute poll found the governor slightly ahead of Gore, 41% to 39%.

Nicholson and Romer offered previews of the messages their parties will deliver to the Latino community.

“Freedom, families, faith and hard work,” Nicholson said. “If those are values in the hearts of most Hispanic Americans, then most Hispanic Americans are already Republicans at heart.”

Romer said Democrats will stress their record on such issues as support for affirmative action hiring and contracting out jobs to minority-owned firms.

Republicans, he said, believe “government is an intrusion in our lives. It ought to be as small as possible. . . . Democrats say everybody ought to have an opportunity. If you don’t have access to good health or good education, we’re willing to use government creatively to get that done.”