New polls show Obama crushing Romney among swing-state Latinos
Friday, October 5, 2012 at 05:48PM President Obama is crushing Mitt Romney among swing-state Hispanics, according to two new polls out from nonpartisan pollster Latino Decisions.
Obama leads Romney by 78 to 17 percent with Nevada's Hispanic voters, a huge gap that outpaces the 76-to-22 percent edge he had over Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) four years ago in the state.
In Florida, where the Republican-leaning Cuban population bolsters Latino GOP support, Obama leads Romney by a 30-point margin, at 61 percent to 31. That's double the 15-point edge he had with the state's Hispanics four years ago, when he carried the demographic group by 57 percent to 42.
If Romney can't close these gaps it will be very difficult for him to win Nevada, and complicate his path to victory in Florida. The group will release polling results in Colorado, another swing state with a large Hispanic population, next week.
These new results mirror national polling by this and other groups that show Obama outpacing his 2008 performance with Latino voters and Romney struggling mightily. Two recent national polls of Hispanic voters show Obama cracking 70 percent, with Romney pulling between one-fifth and one-quarter of Latino voters. A senior Romney Hispanic strategist told The Hill this summer that the campaign's goal was to win 38 percent of the national Hispanic vote.
Romney's campaign has made a recent push for more Latino support, and argued earlier this week that it was doing better than national polling indicated with swing-state Hispanics. But these polls, the only ones so far to conduct polling in Spanish as well as English and have large enough sample sizes to be trusted, indicate the opposite.