Bush Solidly Leads Gore in New National Poll Targeting Latinos

A new national poll that targeted Latinos found George W. Bush enjoying a solid lead--51% to 38%--over Al Gore among this key bloc of voters.

Although Latinos are projected to represent only about 8% of the total vote in this fall’s presidential election, both Texas Gov. Bush, the Republican front-runner, and Vice President Gore, the leader in the Democratic race, are aggressively courting Latino votes, at times sprinkling their campaign speeches with Spanish phrases.

Latinos “are becoming important because they are much more split” in a Bush/Gore matchup than they have been in previous presidential races, when their vote has heavily favored Democrats, said Republican pollster Ed Goeas.

Goeas and Democratic pollster Celinda Lake jointly conducted the Jan. 3-5 national survey of 1,000 likely voters. They also interviewed 298 likely Latino voters. The margin of sampling error for all likely voters is plus or minus 3 percentage points; for Latino voters, it is 6 points.

The pollsters met face to face Wednesday to offer their own political spins on the results. Goeas said Bush, who as Texas governor has reached out for Latino support, is running “shivers up the spines of the Democrats” by benefiting nationally among Latinos from “a belief that he’s on their side.”

“If George W. Bush is the Republican nominee, the Democrats will have to renew their effort to appeal to this key battleground group,” he said. “Even if George W. Bush is not our nominee, all Republican candidates should be encouraged in knowing that the Hispanic vote is not a foregone conclusion.”

Lake termed the results “a wake-up call” for Democrats. She said Bush enjoys strong Latino support “because they believe they know his record” on issues such as education, identified in the survey as the top issue for Latinos.

To combat that, she said, Democrats will have to effectively raise questions about Bush’s record. “The race is far from over,” she said.

Additionally, she said, Democrats will need to ensure a greater turnout among core supporters, such as African Americans, to offset the “potential Democratic defection among Hispanic voters.”

Goeas said Bush’s popularity among Latinos offers opportunities for other Republican candidates to win support from an increasingly important electorate.

As further encouragement for Republicans, he cited a separate study showing that while Latinos registered as voters are Democrats by a 2-1 ratio, there is an even split in attitudes toward the major parties among new Latino arrivals who have yet to become citizens.

Still, Bush’s popularity among Latino voters did not carry over to congressional Republicans. Latinos expressed greater confidence in congressional Democrats than Republicans in dealing with issues they most care about.

Although the new poll did not break down the Latino support for Bush by region, a poll conducted Jan. 2-10 by the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonpartisan think tank in San Francisco, found Gore ahead of Bush among Latino voters in California, 58% to 40%. Political analysts attribute the results to lingering anger over Proposition 187, the anti-illegal immigration initiative pushed by former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson.

In the latest poll by Lake’s firm of Lake Snell Perry & Associates, and Goeas’ The Tarrance Group, Bush also led Gore among all voters by the same 51% to 38% that he scored among Latino voters. With Patrick J. Buchanan in the race as the Reform Party candidate, Bush’s lead dropped to 48% to Gore’s 37%.

The poll, which has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, found respondents in a generally upbeat mood, with voters relatively satisfied with the direction of the country and the job performance of their representative in Congress.

Democrats contend that once voters see the Republican-controlled Congress back in action, attitudes will change.

“We also can’t wait for Congress to get back in town,” Lake said. “Out of sight, out of mind.”

A separate poll released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found Bush ahead of Gore by an almost identical margin, 51% to 39%.

That survey, of registered voters, conducted Jan. 12-16, showed Gore is reaching voters by portraying himself as more moderate than challenger Bill Bradley. Gore now holds a 68% to 24% lead over his rival for the Democratic nomination, the survey found.