Latino Voters Deserting Brown, But Governor’s Race Still Tied

Fri, Oct 1, 2010
By Aaron Glantz
New America Media

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown is still in a dead heat with his GOP rival Meg Whitman, despite losing virtually all of his once-substantial lead among Latino voters, according to results released Thursday by the nonpartisan Field Poll.

The Field Poll shows Brown and Whitman both drawing 41 percent support from registered California voters, with 18 percent still undecided.

But Whitman’s onslaught of more than $100 million in television and radio advertising—which has saturated both the state’s English and Spanish-language media—has succeeded in cutting Brown’s lead among Latinos from 23 percentage points in January to just 3 points today.

The narrowing margin among Latinos should especially concern Brown, says Louis DeSipio, a political science professor at the University of California at Irvine, since Latino voters have solidly favored Democrats ever since then-Governor Pete Wilson, a Republican, pushed through the anti-immigrant ballot measure, Proposition 187, in 1994.

“Brown was there for the farm workers when he was governor 30 years ago,â€