Congressional Quarterly
Published: 07-10-08
Hispanic voters have become a key target in this year’s presidential race courted heavily by both Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain.
Though immigration has become a focus of those efforts experts say the candidates’ positions on basic issues such as the economy education health care crime taxes and national security are likely to be more important.
That’s partly because McCain and Obama both have supported a three-pronged approach to overhauling the nation’s immigration laws that would enhance border security rewrite temporary-worker programs and create a route to citizenship for the roughly 12 million illegal immigrants currently in the country.
McCain an Arizona senator wrote immigration bills with Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts in 2006 and 2007 and Obama of Illinois was part of the larger group of senators who worked on the agreement.
Latino voters will be closely watched in a cluster of southwestern states —Nevada Colorado and New Mexico — that President Bush narrowly won in 2004 as well as in Florida and in a handful of swing states where less attention has been paid to growing Hispanic communities. The candidates’ dexterity in navigating the political nuances of courting Latino voters — who have origins in a diverse set of nations and whose roots in this country range from one generation to many generations — could determine how well they do in those states.
In a 2007 Pew Hispanic Center survey immigration was deemed to be “very important” or “extremely important” by 79 percent of respondents ranking it fifth among the issues tested. Education health care the economy and jobs and crime rated higher. Iraq finished behind immigration with 70 percent of respondents calling it very important or extremely important.
“When we think about Hispanic voters as opposed to the Hispanic community Hispanic voters are all U.S. citizens and many of them are native born. So it’s not surprising that immigration is not one of the top issues for Hispanics” said Susan Minushkin deputy director of the Pew Hispanic Center.
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