November 5, 2008

For Immediate Release

Contact:

Mary Seaborn, info@pewhispanic.org, 202-419-3606

 or

Paul Fucito, pfucito@pewresearch.org, 202-419-4372

Pew Hispanic Center Releases a Report on the Hispanic Vote in the Presidential Election

Hispanics voted for Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden over Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin by a margin of more than two-to-one in the 2008 presidential election, 66% versus 32%, according to a new report from the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center. The report finds that 8% of the electorate was Latino, unchanged from 2004.

Nationwide, the Latino vote was significantly more Democratic this year than in 2004, when President Bush captured an estimated 40% of the Hispanic vote, a modern high for a Republican presidential candidate.1
Obama carried the Latino vote by sizeable margins in all states with large Latino populations. His biggest breakthrough came in Florida , where he won 57% of the Latino vote. President Bush carried 56% of the Latino vote in Florida in 2004.

Obama's margins were much larger in other states with big Latino populations. He carried 78% in New Jersey , 76% of the Latino vote in Nevada , 74% in California , and 73% in Colorado .

This report contains an analysis of exit poll results for the Latino vote nationally and in the states of Arizona , California , Colorado , Florida , Illinois , Nevada , New Jersey , New Mexico and Texas .

The report is available on the Center's website at www.pewhispanic.org.

The Pew Hispanic Center, an initiative of the Pew Research Center, is a nonpartisan,  non-advocacy research organization based in Washington, D.C. and is funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts.

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1There is continuing uncertainty over whether President Bush received 40% of the Hispanic vote in 2004, as indicated by exit polls in the 50 states and the District of Columbia conducted on Election Day, or 44%, as indicated by the nationwide National Election Pool exit poll. Reasons for the differing estimates are spelled out in "Hispanics and the 2004 Election: Population, Electorate and Voters," by Roberto Suro, Richard Fry and Jeffrey Passel (2005).