Weekly tracking poll shows Romney doing slightly better in key states, but voters favor Obama on issues like Medicare and the Economy
LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- This week’s impreMedia-Latino Decisions tracking poll found slight gains for presidential candidate Mitt Romney in battleground states with 33% certain to or thinking about voting for him. Nonetheless, the national polling data continues to strongly favor President Obama and the Democrats.
Fifty-one percent of Latino voters in battleground states said they trust Obama and the Democrats more to make the right decisions and improve economic conditions, compared to 27% for Romney and Republicans. When combined with voters in non-battleground states, the numbers jumped to 72% and 20% respectively, a significant increase from 4 weeks ago when overall 59% said they’d trust Obama and Democrats more versus 30% for Romney and Republicans.
The economy continued to dominate voters’ concerns, with 59% in battleground states and 56% overall listing “Create more jobs / Fix the economy” as their top issue.
“Beyond immigration, which continues to be a very important issue, Obama has now opened up a very large lead on trust to rebuild the economy among Latinos,” stated Matt Barreto of Latino Decisions. “While Republicans had hoped the weak economy would provide an opening to win over Latinos, almost three-fourths of Latinos say they have more confidence in Obama to fix the economy. Romney's infamous comments about the '47 percent' are clearly hurting him among Latinos. He appears out of touch with the average working class family.”
Core support for Romney among Latino voters also continues to be problematic, with just 10% of respondents saying they had a “very favorable” opinion of Romney, compared to 55% for Obama. “Is Romney out of the race? No, but he is definitely in trouble among Latino voters,” said Monica Lozano, CEO of impreMedia. “Obama has consistently gained ground among Latinos on a week over week basis, and while Romney’s support is higher in key battleground states than elsewhere, it may be too late to close the gap.”
The impreMedia-Latino Decisions tracking poll puts Obama ahead with 73% overall certain to vote for him and 21% for Romney. In the battleground states Obama gets 61% of the voters versus 33% for Romney.
Democrats in general also saw increased support, with 64% of respondents overall saying they were doing a good job of reaching out to Hispanics / Latinos, an increase of 5% from last week’s polling. On the same question 15% of respondents said the Republicans were doing a good job. In battleground states 47% felt Democrats were doing a good job vs. 17% for Republicans.
Media Footnote: All References to the poll must be as follows: The impreMedia-Latino Decisions Tracking Poll. To view more data and information on this week’s poll visit: www.laopinion.com/section/voto.
Follow the impreMedia-Latino Decisions Tracking Poll results on twitter with #IMLDPOLLS
METHODOLOGY
This is the sixth release of an 11-week tracking poll of Latino registered voters. Each week impreMedia and Latino Decisions will release a new rolling cross-section of 300 completed interviews with Latino registered voters across all 50 states. Battleground interviewers are combined across all six weeks and are 267 completed interviews, with Florida accounting for the largest share of battleground states. Interviews are conducted in English or Spanish, at the preference of the respondent, all conducted by bilingual interviewers at Latino Decisions calling center, Pacific Market Research. The survey averaged 10 minutes in length, and has an overall margin of error of 5.6% on results that approach a 50/50 distribution. All respondents confirm that they are Hispanic or Latino and currently registered to vote.
This third wave of the survey was fielded Sept 21-Sept 27, 2012.
About impreMedia
impreMedia is the leading Hispanic news and information company in the U.S. in online and print. impreMedia's multi-platform offerings range from online to video, social media, mobile, audio, newspapers and magazines, including the http://www.impre.com portal. 25.5% of U.S. Hispanic adults use an impreMedia network product. The network is also the nation's largest Hispanic newspaper publisher with newspapers in top U.S. Hispanic markets, reaching 15 markets total that represent 59% of the U.S. Hispanic population. Its leading publications include La Opinión in Los Angeles and El Diario La Prensa in New York. For more information, visit: http://www.impremedia.com.
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About Latino Decisions
Latino Decisions is a joint effort between Pacific Market Research, a nationally known research firm, and Dr. Gary Segura and Dr. Matt Barreto, leading Latino politics scholars and professors at Stanford University and the University of Washington. Both Dr. Segura and Dr. Barreto are experienced and nationally respected researchers who have a deep understanding of U.S. Latino culture and advanced quantitative research skills. Their expertise, coupled with Pacific Market Research’s logistical capabilities, makes Latino Decisions a leader in the field. For more information, please visit www.latinodecisions.com or call 877-271-2300.
Press Inquiries for impreMedia
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Source: impreMedia