Guest Column
Zogby/Hispanic PR Wire Poll: U.S. Hispanic Voters Abandon GOP
Heated debate over immigration earlier this year may have soured some
Hispanic American voters on the Republican Party; Top Hispanic concerns
mirror those of nation at large
Utica, NY--(HISPANIC PR WIRE)--November 28, 2006--Just two years after 40%
of Hispanic Americans voted for Republican President George W. Bush’s
reelection, far fewer say they think the Republican Party understands them
best, a new Zogby/Hispanic PR Wire telephone poll shows.
Barely one in five Hispanic voters – 23% – said they felt the Republican
Party understands them best, compared to 56% who said they think Democrats
know them better, the new survey shows.
The Zogby/Hispanic PR Wire poll, conducted Nov. 17–20, 2006, included 903
respondents, 737 of which were voters in the Nov. 7 general election. The
poll carries a margin of error of +/– 3.7 percentage points.
Even among Hispanics who said they were themselves Republicans, just 76%
said they thought the GOP understood them best. Another 8% said the
Libertarian Party best understood them, 7% thought Democrats knew them
better, while 10% of Republicans said that either another party better
understood them, or that they were unsure. Among Democratic Hispanics, 83%
said their own party better understood them, while 4% said Republicans
understood them best. Another 7% of Democrats said other minor parties had
the best understanding of them, while 7% were uncertain.
Asked which political party is best equipped to manage a handful of
important issues, Hispanics who said they had voted in the recent
congressional midterm elections favored Democrats on each by wide margins,
including immigration, where 49% said Democrats were better equipped to
manage the issue, compared to 26% who favored the Republicans.
The longer the respondent’s family had been in America, the more likely they
were to support Democrats over Republicans on the issue, the survey showed.
While 43% of those not born in the U.S. said Democrats were better equipped,
56% of those who were fourth–generation Americans or greater favored
Democrats, suggesting that the more familiar Hispanic voters were with
Republican policies, the less they liked them.
Immigration was at the center of a heated debate in Congress earlier this
year that split the Republican Party over how to deal with the U.S. southern
border and immigrants who had entered the country illegally. Some
Republicans backed plans that would have dealt harshly with such illegal
immigrants – most of them Hispanic.
Which Political Party is Better Equipped to Deal With:
Democrats Republicans Neither Not Sure
Immigration 49% 26% 20% 5%
Health Care 66% 21% 10% 3%
Iraq War 57% 26% 15% 3%
Education 62% 23% 11% 4%
Terrorism & 45% 34% 16% 5%
Security
Representing 54% 28% 15% 4%
Your Values
The Zogby/Hispanic PR Wire survey also asked a broader pool of respondents
including both Hispanic voters and non–voters which issues they believed
were most important to the nation, where a significant majority cited the
Iraq war as the dominant issue.
While 60% said the Iraq war was one of the two most important issues, 25%
cited jobs and the economy as a top concern. Terrorism was mentioned by 15%,
while 13% said dealing with the illegal immigration problem was a top
concern. As with non–Hispanics across the nation, Democratic Hispanics were
more likely than Republican Hispanics to say the Iraq war was a top concern.
About Hispanic PR Wire
Miami-based and Latino-owned Hispanic PR Wire (HPRW) is the nation’s leading
press release newswire service for Hispanic and Puerto Rico journalists and
marketers. Through scores of news partnerships with many of the nation’s
leading Hispanic newspapers, magazines and Internet portals, HPRW gives
clients more than 75 online placements with any geographic press release
distribution.
Hispanic PR Wire sends corporate, government and non-profit press releases
and media advisories daily to thousands of journalists subscribed to receive
its email news and RSS feeds.
Hispanic PR Wire is a sister company of editorial features service ConTexto
Latino, Hispanic monitoring service LatinClips, Hispanic professional
development service Hispanic Market Pro, Hispanic Web marketing firm
Hispanic Digital Network and African American wire service Black PR Wire.
HPRW is also the exclusive Hispanic wire partner of leading corporate wire
distributor Business Wire.
For a detailed methodology statement, please visit
http://www.zogby.com.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed by HispanicVista.com (www.hispanicvista.com) without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)