Obama Can Help Unite Latino and Black Voters

Hispanic registered voters ranked education as the number one issue of the fall election while supporting Democrat Barack Obama for president over Republican John McCain by 66 percent to 23 percent.

According to a nationwide survey of 2,015 Latinos conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center (PHC), respondents also indicated a dramatic reversal in Obama’s status among Latinos from the primaries, when he lost the Latino vote to Hillary Rodham Clinton by a nearly two-to-one ratio.
This might be the most important finding by researchers because it proves that Latinos can and will support a Black candidate for president.

“Latinos want to be supportive,” says Roberto Chavez, Interim-chair of the NEA Hispanic Caucus. “Closing any gaps that might exist between Blacks and Latinos is crucial to winning the election.”

In the survey, three times as many respondents said being Black would help Obama (32 percent) with Latino voters than said it would hurt him (11 percent). The majority (53 percent) said his race would make no difference to Latino voters. At 46 million, Latinos represent about 15 percent of the U.S. population.

Chavez agrees that the candidates’ ethnic backgrounds are less a factor than where they stand on the issues and how they choose to reach out to the Latino community.
“Visibility is number one,” he says. “Obama needs to come into our neighborhoods and talk with us. He should, for example, commit now to appointing Latinos to his Cabinet and the White House.”

In addition to education, Latinos prefer Obama’s views over McCain’s on other issues, such as jobs, healthcare and immigration, according to PHC, a nonpartisan organization that researches the growing U.S. Latino population.

“Obama can do a lot to bring Latino and Black activists together,” says Chavez, a fourth grade teacher at Greenville Elementary School in Santa Ana, and a member of the California Teachers Association.

In a recent Gallup poll, Obama is leading McCain by 30 percentage points among Latinos. Although Latino turnout is lower than for other ethnic groups, they could be crucial in November because of their numbers in the battleground states of Florida (where Latinos make up 14 percent of the state’s eligible electorate), Colorado (12 percent), Nevada (12 percent) and New Mexico (37 percent).