LatinaLista — One of the premier pollsters in the country, Gallup, posted a poll that appears to defy facts as it pertains to Latino voters. Unfortunately, because most in media just take it for granted that Gallup knows what it’s doing, no one bothered to analyze the results.
If any of us had, we would have arrived at the same conclusion that Simon Rosenberg, of the think-tank NDN, discovered — it’s baloney!
…the new Gallup likely voter model has the non-white, non-black vote at 13 percent of the 2010 electorate, and coming in at 52% Republican and 42% Democratic.
Hispanics who make up the largest portion of this slice of the electorate, voted 70% to 30% for the Democrats in 2006, and 67% to 31% for President Obama over John McCain in 2008. In two recent polls of Hispanic voters, these basic ratios have not changed, and if (there) is any movement to be found in these polls it is a drop in support for the Republican Party since 2008. A Latino Decisions poll has the Latino vote now at 59% Democrat, 22% Republican. The most recent, and highly respected, Pew Hispanic poll had it at 65% Democrat, 22% Republican. The gap between the most respected Latino poll in the nation – Pew – and this recent Gallup model is 50% percentage points.
Rosenberg has called on Gallup to correct their analysis or remove it from the site.
Time will tell if a prestigious pollster like Gallup will own up to the defects of the poll or perpetuate a myth that would have the nation believe that anti-immigrant, hard line rhetoric doesn’t matter to the nation’s Latino community.
If that happens, Gallup is creating a further disservice to the Latino community by misrepresenting the realities that exist in those communities across the country for whom politicians’ words still matter very much.
