Wooing The Latino Voter
Faith
Latino-Americans are largely a church-going group, with roughly half saying they go to church “frequently,” according to a 2010 Pew study. And, they tend to fall on the conservative side of many faith-based issues.
The right to abortion, for example, is an issue on which Latino voters tend to break from the Democratic pro-choice stance, with 55% saying that abortion should be illegal in most or all cases, according to a 2010 Pew study.
They also tend to be conservative on the issue of same-sex marriage, with 52% opposing it, according to the same study.
Family Issues
Above all else, family issues top the list of Latino voters’ priorities.
The 2008 Pew study found that Latino voters consider education (93%), cost of
living (92%), jobs (91%), and health care (90%) to be “very important” or “extremely important.”
Their vote in 2008 made it clear that Latino voters considered the Democratic Party nominee to be better suited to deal with these topics. Latino voters overwhelmingly said they thought that Obama would be better than McCain for education (66% to 18%); jobs (65% to 19%); cost of living (64% to 19%), and health care (64% to 19%).
