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President Obama currently holds a seven point lead over Mitt Romney in Colorado according to a new PPP poll of the state. What is must interesting about the poll is why Obama is leading: it’s driven in large part by a huge lead among Hispanics. From PPP:
The reason the race has tightened over the last couple months is that Romney’s really closed the gap with independents. He still trails Obama 48-38 with them, but that’s quite a bit better than April when he was down 57-31. The candidates both have their party bases pretty unified with Obama at 87% of Democrats and Romney at 84% of Republicans.
There’s been an interesting shift along racial lines over the last 2 months. Obama’s doing better with Hispanics than he was previously, leading 60-33 compared to a previous advantage of 53-38. But he’s doing worse with whites, leading only 47-45, down from 52-41 in April. About a third of the interviews for this poll were conducted prior to Obama’s immigration announcement so it would be simplistic to ascribe those shifts to that, but it’s worth keeping an eye on.
With unemployment still high, dropping economic confidence and a rapidly deteriorating situation in Europe likely to provide farther drag on our own economy, Obama is going to have a tough time winning over white swing voters whose primary concern is the economy.
Obama’s economic tenure has been disappointing. His job approval rating on the economy is significantly negative, and in general people view Romney as being as capable or even more capable in handling the economy.
While the Obama team will have a tough time convincing the general public he will be better on the economy than Romney, it is relatively easy for Obama to draw a sharp contrast on some issues particularly important to Hispanics, like immigration reform. Romney has staked out a rather hardcore anti-immigration position during the GOP primary, and that’s being highlighted against Obama’s recent popular move to help undocumented immigrants that came here as children.
Since this is one of the few places Obama can, with his own actions, prove to a large voting bloc that he is clearly “better” than Romney, the campaign needs to exploit it to maximum effect. Obama will likely need to win this Hispanic vote by overwhelming margins to win this year.
9 Comments
I’m not sure Obama can prove anything. His administration is marked by record deportation rates.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/06/14/1099870/-Record-level-deportations-continue-under-Obama-Administration
Perhaps this is just a publicity bump. The truth will eventually out, and enthusiasm behind Obama will wane.
Much as I dislike bo, last week’s move to allow illegal immmigrants to stay and work was great politically. Both parties know how valuable the Latino vote is. The group likely to be more pissed (jon, I’d have to read your other post on this) would seem to be white male voters. That’s a constituency he’s been losing anyway so it’s no big risk to do what he did last week.
While it is a good move, both politically and for the Hispanics, I see it as an election year trick only. I do enjoy se the R’s set back in this manner.
Two questions immediately follow:
1. Why was this not done 3 years ago?
2. If re-elected what’s the follow on action planned?
If O had take many more bold moves, including single payer, and prosecuting war criminals (and not becoming one) and bankers, he’d be much more popular.
On a day when Roseanne Barr correctly accused Nancy Pelosi of being a war criminal, Jon Walker worries constantly about how the most evil president ever will get re-elected.
Awesome.
I agree. Why now, not 2 years ago. It reeks of a political ploy to help his re-election. He MUST pull a 70-30 split on the HIspanice vote to even have a chance to win this election. HIs deportation “records” were and still might be something Romney can latch onto.
I don’t disageree with the substance, only with the timing and his motivation.
With all the high-fiving over this issue’s effect on the Hispanic vote for Obama, very little attention has been paid to the effect on those “white swing voters.” I don’t think ALL of them are racists, and I’d bet a fair number of them voted for Obama in 2008.
However, from what I’ve seen in the comments on various sites, this move is seen as unleashing new hordes of competition for jobs and spots in college on those “white swing voters.”
I’m wondering if Obama thinks Latino voters will outnumber the “white swing voters” who are going to abandon him on this issue [but who might have voted for him without it].
I think the calculus here is a net gain in latino voters.
Great Point!
The OBAMA WHITE HOUSE has been a disaster from day one!
The idea that a Black Candidate who ran as a liberal democrat, could support one conservative idea after another and get re-elected was insane!
The only white voters that would vote for a Black Democratic Candidate are liberals and progressives, especially on a statewide and national level. How many GOP senators have there been in the last 10 years? 0
Obama and his staff of morons, thought that a black candidate could pull a Clinton, Not!
Obama has all but loss intelligent liberals and progressives.
“I think Obama and his band of morons just realize that, a lot of white liberals and progressives are not going to vote for Obama, a lot of intelligent black, latino, and asian liberals and progressives are not going to vote for OBAMA!
Obama and his band of morons thought that liberals and progressives were joking when they said they would not be voting for him.
Obama and his band of morons are now chasing votes where ever they can get them.
Obama internal polls must be horrible! and they are going to get worse, due to what is happening in the EU. “the USA economy is not going anywhere! this is not saying much, because it has not move in 4 years”
this may happen:
the Dems may win the House, and Senate back and lose the White House, the chance of this happening increases daily.
Unfortunately for us, the citizenry has been so effectively dumbed-down that the percentage of the population comprised of actual liberals and progressives is minimal. The remainder aren’t capable of differentiating between actions and rhetoric, and Obama still gives go rhetoric.