Poll: Obama leading among Hispanic voters nearly 2-to-1

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is leading nationally among Hispanic voters while Republican John McCain is leading heavily with white evangelicals, according to polling data released Sunday by the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan organization.

Data from a poll (PDF) of more than 2,587 likely voters interviewed on landline and cell phones found 49 percent supporting or leaning to Obama, compared with 42 percent for McCain. Obama had support from 62 percent of Hispanics, while McCain had garnered support from 71 percent of white evangelical Protestants.

The poll also shows that McCain has a narrow lead among whites and married voters, along with strong Obama support coming from young people and blacks:

Obama has strong support among blacks (89%-5%), Hispanics (62%-31%), young voters (61% to 36%), and lower-income voters (64%-29%). McCain has a large lead among white evangelical Protestants (71%-21%) and narrower advantages among whites (49%-42%) and married voters (50%-42%).

The poll also found that turnout could be significantly larger than in 2004, when Pew states that “voting participation reached its highest point in nearly four decades.”

While the survey found increased voting rates among young people and blacks, it also found signs of greater turnout across the board.

Erin Rosa was born in Spain and raised in Colorado Springs. She is a freelance writer currently living in Denver. Rosa's work has been featured in a variety of news outlets including the Huffington Post, Democracy Now!, and the Rocky Mountain Chronicle, an alternative-weekly in Northern Colorado where she worked as a columnist covering the state legislature. Rosa has received awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for her reporting on lobbying and woman's health issues. She was also tapped with a rare honorable mention award by the Newspaper Guild-CWA's David S. Barr Award in 2008--only the second such honor conferred in its nine-year history--for her investigative series covering the federal government's Supermax prison in the state. Rosa covers the labor community, corrections, immigration and government transparency matters. She can be reached at erosa@www.coloradoindependent.com.

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