Hispanics Still Favor Democrats in Elections, but a Split Voting Record Gives Republicans Hope

Carolyn Hileman* | August 14, 2007

By MICHAEL R. BLOOD Associated Press WriterDemocrats hold an edge with Hispanics in national elections, but Latinos’ growing tendency to register as independents and split their vote between parties is buoying Republican prospects for 2008. Younger and college-educated Hispanics in particular offer fertile ground for the GOP, new data show. And while no one suggests Republicans have become the party of choice for the nation’s fastest-growing minority, Democrats have been gradually losing ground. “The Democrats began in the 1980s to slowly lose Latino registration,” said Antonio Gonzalez, president of the William C. Velasquez Institute, a San Antonio-based research group that studies Hispanic issues. “It’s drip, drip, drip.” President Bush claimed 40 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004, a record for a Republican presidential candidate. But it will be challenging for the party to repeat or build on that performance Bush’s popularity has withered and many Hispanics were soured by remarks by GOP conservative hard-liners during the immigration debate.

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