Polling firms that conduct interviews only in English are likely to miss some Latino voters who are more comfortable speaking Spanish, underestimating the impact of Democratic Latino voters.
According to Matt Barreto of Latino Decisions, a polling firm that conducts bilingual interviews, primarily Spanish-speaking Latino voters are more likely to vote Democratic than those who have more English fluency.
The most recent Latino Decisions poll shows President Obama has more votes amongst Latinos versus votes for Governor Mitt Romney. This remains consistent from the 2008 election, when two out of three Latinos voted for Obama.
Other polling services, like the Behavior Research Center, conduct interviews in Spanish along with English, and have found similar results. This factor could make some differences in states with heavy Latino populations, particularly swing states like Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Florida, Virginia, Texas.
Even though Latinos cast their vote for candidates based on a plethora of reasons, nationally, Latinos prefer the Democratic Party by more than three to one, according to the Pew Research Center.
“I think that this election there will be a difference in Latino votes,” says Joe Garcia, Director of the Latino Public Policy Center at Arizona State University’s Morrison Institute for Public Policy. “All future elections if you don’t get the Latino vote, you don’t win.”
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