Obama Gaining Ground With Hispanic Voters

I've noted before - as have many others - that the fastest growing demographic in America is the Hispanic population. Indeed, depending on what projection you look at, whites will be a minority in the United Sates within not too many decades. Yet the current Republican party seems Hell bent to alienate Hispanics and other minorities groups of all stripes. For these minorities in elections the choice consequently becomes one of choosing between someone whose policies don't thrill you or choosing someone who hates you and views you as less than a "real American." One doesn't need to be a rocket scientist to realize that living with less than thrilling policies is far preferable to supporting someone who despises you. Such is the phenomenon that appears to be happening with the Hispanic vote which is trending towards Obama over all of the GOP alternatives. Fox News has coverage on this phenomenon. Here are some highlights:

Despite growing disappointment in his handling of immigration issues, Latino voters favor President Barack Obama by six-to-one over any of the Republican presidential hopefuls, showed a Fox News Latino poll conducted under the direction of Latin Insights and released Monday.

The national poll of likely Latino voters indicated that 73 percent of them approved of Obama’s performance in office, with over half those questioned looking favorably upon his handling of the healthcare debate and the economy, at 66 percent and 58 percent respectively.

Released on the eve of the Super Tuesday primaries in the race for the GOP nomination, the Fox News Latino poll shows former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney with 35 percent of Latino voter support, to Texas Rep. Ron Paul's 13 percent, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich's 12 percent, and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum's 9 percent.

But the poll shows that the overwhelming choice among likely Latino voters is President Obama. In head-to-head match-ups none of the GOP candidates would garner more than 14 percent of the Latino vote come November, the poll said.

"The more Latinos learn about the [GOP] candidates, the more they reject them." Caught-up in the throes of a bitterly contested primary season, the GOP hopefuls seem to be losing traction among Latino voters.

Although immigration came in fourth among issues cited as important by likely Latino voters --to jobs and the economy, education, and health care-- voter responses on immigration show a wide discrepancy with the positions of GOP hopefuls.

The Fox News Latino poll show likely Latino voters across the country overwhelmingly support the DREAM Act (90 percent), favor a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants (85 percent), and believe undocumented workers help to grow the U.S. economy (82 percent).

No doubt the Obama camp hopes that the GOP presidential candidate clown car continues to alienate minorities and women. Championing the cause of bitter old Bible beating white men clearly seems to be killing the GOP brand in many segments of the population.