Immigration, Not Economy, Top Issue for Latino Voters, New Poll Shows

Presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney, left, and Newt Gingrich during the Republican debate on Dec. 10, 2011, in Des Moines, Iowa (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) (Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

A recent poll suggests that immigration reform is the top issue influencing the Latino vote in the lead-up to next year’s presidential race, despite their overall waning interest in the race.

The poll, conducted by Latino Decisions, reported that 42 percent of Latino voters were concerned about immigration with unemployment coming in second at a distant 23 percent. Fixing the economy came in third at 20 percent, while only one percent of the Latinos polled thought that there was a major need to address Wall Street banking practices.

Overall Latino voters are less enthusiastic about the presidential race with only 44 percent of Latino voters saying they are very excited about participating in the 2012 election - a three percent drop from October's poll.

Even with these waning numbers, 54 percent Latinos still said they were certain that they would vote for U.S. President Barack Obama in the upcoming election. Only nine percent of Latinos said that they were certain that they would vote for Romney.

Romney was the only GOP candidate mentioned in the poll.

It seems like this is in part because there’s only competition on the Republican side, but it also means Latinos in general aren’t very interested and don’t feel included in the Republicans’ conversation.

— Matt Baretto

“It seems like this is in part because there’s only competition on the Republican side, but it also means Latinos in general aren’t very interested and don’t feel included in the Republicans’ conversation,” University of Washington in Seattle professor and adviser for Latino Decisions Matt Barreto said in a statement, according to Politico.

The candidates’ religious beliefs also don’t seem to play into the Latino vote, with 55 percent of those polled saying that it has no bearing on their vote and only 19 percent claiming it has a big impact.

The Latino Decisions poll surveyed 500 Latino voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.

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