http://krla870.townhall.com/news/politi ... as_victoryLatino Vote Fueled Obama's VictoryLatinos are hailed as a key voting bloc, even though they show their power at the polls only sporadically. When they turned out in record numbers to vote for Democrat Barack Obama, they not only erased recent gains by Republicans but shattered the myth of a black-Latino divide.
Amid worries about home foreclosures and economic recession and driven by an unprecedented get-out-the-vote effort and the acidic debate over illegal immigration, Latinos helped Democrats flip the battleground states of Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Florida.
"Without the Latino vote, we would not have won those states," said Federico Pena, Denver's first Hispanic mayor and a national co-chairman of the Obama campaign.
The nonpartisan National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials estimates that between 9.6 million and 11 million Hispanics voted in the election, compared to a U.S. Census estimate of 7.6 million in 2004. Latinos comprised 9 percent of all voters this year, compared to 7 percent in 2004, according to Associated Press exit polls.
Nationwide, the AP polls suggested about two-thirds of Latino voters chose Obama over Republican John McCain. About three-fourths of Hispanics under the age of 30 supported Obama.
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