Obama Polls Are More About Spin Than About Latinos

Interesting question posed by the Washington Post:

With Hispanic support for Obama waning, could Latino vote be up for grabs in 2012?

I don’t know if the question was meant to coincide with the beginning of Hispanic Heritage Month, but lucky timing aside, it’s one of those questions that is so bloated with assumptions that it leaves no room for an honest answer.

The question is based on the most recent Gallup Poll that has President Obama’s approval rating among Latinos down to 48% – compared to 60% last January. The first assumption is that the Gallup poll is an accurate measure of Latino sentiment. I’ve written about this in the past. I don’t think that a poll that culls a Latino result by extracting Latino responses from a general population sample is a true representation of Latino opinion. It’s more happenstance than science.

But even so, and for the sake of argument, let’s step into the Gallup bubble.

Inside this universe Latinos are packaged as a monolithic block.  Like migrating wildlife, Latinos are expected to shift and change direction according to their perceived environment.

Also, the poll assumes that the President will have no opponent. Ask a south Texan who’s been living through one of the worst droughts in history whether he’d like some rain – you’ll probably get a yes. But what if the rain came as part of a hurricane?

Even if the question is about the lesser of two evils, it’s still a more realistic question than the one posed. Barack Obama or Rick Perry? Obama or Romney? It changes everything.

At the other end, there are some correct assumptions.

Latinos are a formidable and growing political force. There are enough registered Latino voters in key parts of the country to sway elections and electoral vote counts – assuming they all vote for the same candidate. So it’s understandable that – in the midst of Hispanic Heritage month – Latino political opinion poll results be dusted-off for a quick snapshot and headline (and I say dusted-off because any political opinion poll more than a week old is hardly worth bringing off the shelf).

And what is it about Obama that has made his numbers slip? According to the poll watchers:

• his aggressive record of undocumented worker deportations.
• his poor performance on the economy.

“Latino voters see a very clear choice,” ( Obama’s lead pollster, Joel) Benenson said, “between President Obama, who is fighting for measures to restore balance, fairness and the economic security for working and middle-class Latino families  through programs like the Dream Act, job training programs and common-sense immigration reform versus a Republican lineup of congressmen and presidential contenders who vehemently oppose and denounce every one of these measures.”

“President Obama’s decline among Hispanics, like most other segments of the electorate, is very real, and it is a consequence of his weak performance on the core issue affecting people’s attitudes — the economy,” said Danny Diaz, a Republican consultant.

Obama won 67 percent of the Latino vote in 2008, the highest percentage for a Democrat since President Bill Clinton carried 72 percent of the Hispanic vote in 1996.

We won’t know until after the polls close in 2012 whether today’s numbers will hold or not.

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