Immigration may not be Romney Deal Breaker for Latinos

Liberals widely believed in 2008 that Arizona's new anti-immigration law would spark a backlash against the Republicans who backed it. The backlash never came, though, and the Supreme Court indicated Wednesday that the law may stand.

Will that scenario replay for likely GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney? Liberal activists have tagged his immigration stance, calling for illegals to "self deport," as a serious drag. But a closer look shows that Latino voters are conflicted over immigration and also deem it a relatively low-priority issue...

Almost as many Latinos support Arizona's law, 47%, as oppose it, 49%, according to a recent Quinnipiac poll. Asked if they thought the Supreme Court should toss the law, Latinos favored keeping it, 45%-43%. For all Americans, the numbers are 62%-27% in favor of keeping it.

An October 2010 study by Pew found that just 29% of Latinos said illegal immigrants' impact was positive vs. 31% who said the impact was negative. Another 30% saw no impact...

Among native-born Hispanics, 36% said illegal immigration had had a negative effect, while only 24% said it was positive.

The same study found that Latinos rated immigration fourth on their list of top issues, behind education, jobs and health care. Only 32% rated it as extremely important. For U.S.-born Latinos, immigration ranks sixth, also dropping below the budget deficit and the environment...

Amazingly, Pew even found that immigration reform wasn't the top issue for illegal immigrants, with only 27% of them calling it extremely important. It placed fourth on their lists too....

A narrow plurality of all Latinos, 48%-46%, back increased border patrols. A majority, 58%, favors a national identity card....

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cpwill said:

I'll admit, even I am surprised by these numbers. This is fantastic.The "Republicans Hate Hispanics" card is going to be played this season. Be interesting to see if it sparks any backlash among hispanics.

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A poll conducted by ASU researchers indicates that 81 percent of registered Latino voters oppose SB 1070 either strongly or somewhat that and 59 percent blame Republicans. But the poll also indicated that 60 percent of Latino voters also blame Democrats for not doing enough to block the law.

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarep...a-immigration-law-backlash.html#ixzz1tSVlLj9i

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Obama running strong with his base and key swing groups

This week featured a flurry of national polls that showed varying results: A CNN poll had Obama up by nine; the Pew Research Center had the president up four; a New York Times/CBS poll had it even; and the Gallup Daily Tracking Poll currently has Romney up by five.

But in this NBC/WSJ poll, Obama leads Romney among registered voters, 49 percent to 43 percent – a margin that has been fairly consistent in the survey since the beginning of the year; the president led Romney in March, 50 percent to 44 percent.

Looking inside these numbers, the president holds an advantage with African Americans (90 percent to 4 percent), Latinos (69 percent to 22 percent) voters ages 18-34 (60 percent to 34 percent) and women (53 percent to 41 percent).

In addition, he edges Romney among key swing groups like independents (44 percent to 34 percent), Midwest voters (47 percent to 44 percent) and suburban women (48 percent to 45 percent).

Meanwhile, Romney is ahead among whites (52 percent to 40 percent), suburban voters (49 percent to 44 percent) and those expressing high interest in the election (49 percent to 46 percent).

In measuring key attributes and qualities, Obama also enjoys significant leads on being easygoing and likeable (54 percent to 18 percent); on caring about average people (52 percent to 22 percent); on dealing with issues of concern to women (49 percent to 21 percent); and on looking out for the middle class (48 percent to 27 percent).

He’s also ahead of Romney when it comes to being knowledgeable and experienced about the presidency (45 percent to 30 percent), being a good commander-in-chief (43 percent to 33 percent), being consistent and standing up for his beliefs (41 percent to 30 percent), and being honest and straightforward (37 percent to 30 percent).

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_new...x-points-but-republican-ahead-on-economy?lite

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cpwill said:

:shrug: I'm not terribly worried about Arizona - the poll was at the national level. Picking out a single sub-demographic that served as an outlier sort of only highlights the weakness of your response.

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jgarden47 said:

Romney and supporters like "cpwill" will have to go back to their "EZ Sketch" to rethink how to attract the Latino vote.

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..... The poll was conducted from April 16-18 and surveyed 1,059 likely Hispanic voters in Florida, Nevada and New Mexico. The poll asked Hispanics their thoughts on a Democratic presidential ticket of Barack Obama and Joe Biden versus a Republican ticket of Mitt Romney and Rubio, the Florida senator, Gov. Brian Sandoval of Nevada or Gov. Susana Martinez of New Mexico.

In all three states, the poll results showed strong Hispanic support for Obama over Romney. Because most Hispanic voters generally have a negative opinion of Romney, “Republicans won’t be able to make up ground with Hispanic voters by simply nominating a Hispanic vice presidential candidate,” said Kill Hanauer, President and CEO of Project New America.

In Nevada, Hispanic voters prefer Obama-Biden to Romney-Sandoval, 64 percent to 27 percent. Similarly, in New Mexico, Romney-Martinez had a low 28 percent of the Hispanic support, whereas Obama-Biden led with 65 percent .....

http://blog.chron.com/txpotomac/201...ng-to-boost-hispanic-support-for-mitt-romney/

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