Univision News

President Obama’s approval rating isn’t what it used to be, but he’s still beating his GOP opponents handily among Latino voters. (Keturah Stickann, Flickr)

By JORDAN FABIAN
Channel: Politics

President Obama’s approval rating among Latinos has taken a significant dip over the past year as the community has frowned upon his handling of deportations, but the president remains positioned to crush his GOP opponents among Latino voters, according to a new poll released Wednesday.

Obama is beating former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a front-runner for the GOP nomination, 68-23 among Latino registered voters in a hypothetical head-to-head match up, according to a survey conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center. The president also leads Texas Gov. Rick Perry 69-23 percent.

While Obama’s share of the Latino vote hews closely to the share he won in 2008, when he took 67 percent of the vote, his Republican rivals still trail behind Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) paltry 31 percent.

Obama is in a strong position to win over Latino voters in spite of the fact that they seemed to have soured some on his presidency.

The president’s overall job approval rating has dropped nine points since last year. Only 54 percent of Latino registered voters approve of how the president has handled his job, down from 63 percent in 2010. And 52 percent of Latino registered voters disapprove of the way his administration has handled the deportation of undocumented immigrants, a top issue for the Latino community.

The poll indicates that despite some apparent weaknesses in Obama’s Latino support, Republicans remain highly unpopular with the Latino community, which could play a major role in deciding the next president; Pew estimates that 21.7 million Latinos will be eligible to vote in 2012, the largest amount ever.

“We do know that support for Obama and the Democrats remains strong even though his approval rating has declined by nine percentage points over the last year,” Pew Hispanic Center Associate Director Mark H. Lopez told Univision News.

Latino voters still strongly identify as Democrats: 67 percent identify or lean toward the Democratic Party compared to 20 percent who say the same about the Republican Party. In addition, 45 percent say that Democrats have more concern for Latinos, compared to 12 percent who say Republicans do. That figure is up six percentage points from 2010, but it is still low.

“These numbers are actually numbers that we’ve seen historically over the last decade in terms of the share of Hispanic voters who say Democrats are better or who say Republicans are better. We actually haven’t seen much change in this,” Lopez said.

And what’s striking is that only 28 percent of Latino Republicans say their party has more concern for their community than Democrats.

That’s a troubling number for Republicans, who are hoping to grow their share of the Latino vote in 2012, primarily based upon concern over the struggling economy. Political observers believe Republicans need to win close to 40 percent of the Latino vote nationwide — close to the proportion President George W. Bush won in 2004 — in order to win the White House.

Theoretically, Republicans should have room to grow among Latinos in this political environment. The Latino jobless rate is higher than the national average at 11.4 percent and 50 percent rate the economy as the top issue for the 2012 elections. In addition, with the economy continuing to struggle, most Latinos believe the country is headed down the wrong track. 

But the GOP brand remains toxic for most Latinos and the party, which has largely taken a tough stance against illegal immigration, is failing to win over those who have become disillusioned with Obama’s deportation policies.

For example, Obama is still winning over 57 percent of those who disapprove of his handling of deportations in a hypothetical match up with Romney.

Republicans still believe they haven’t squandered their opportunity with Latinos. Jennifer Korn, who leads the conservative Hispanic Leadership Network, said that many Latinos still have not made up their minds, citing the fact that 56 percent of Latinos are still tuned out from the elections. 

“As we ramp up and get close to the election, I definitely think the president will lose support as we explain the differences between his economic policies and ours,” she said. Korn also said that Republicans will expend more effort on Latino outreach than they did in 2008. 

But the GOP candidates largely have not helped themselves in terms of their image among Latinos.

Romney, for example, has used immigration as a wedge issue against his rivals Perry and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who have spoken in favor of some benefits for undocumented immigrants living in the United States.

Eighty-four percent of Latinos in general support in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants, a policy Perry signed into law as governor of Texas that Romney has attacked.

Forty-six percent of Latinos, a plurality, believe that a path to citizenship and border security should be given equal priority. Gingrich has backed a “pathway to legality” for some undocumented immigrants and also sustained attacks from Romney. Thirty-three percent of Latinos consider immigration to be an “extremely” important issue for them personally.

Pew did not include Gingrich, who has a history of reaching out to Latino voters, in its ballot test.

Pew’s 2011 National Survey of Latinos polled 1,220 Latino adults, including 557 self-identified registered voters. The margin of error for the full sample is 3.6 percentage points and the margin of error for the registered voter sample is 5.2 percentage points.