http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/4363839.html

By MICHELLE MITTELSTADT
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

WASHINGTON — Exit polls suggest Latino voters deserted the Republican candidates at nearly twice the rate of non-Hispanic whites during this month's congressional elections, the Pew Hispanic Center said on Monday.

But the conventional wisdom that Hispanics were turned off by the party's hard line on illegal immigration — and would deliver on the "Today we march, tomorrow we vote" cry from the spring's protest marches — was not the decisive factor, some experts said.

Dissatisfaction over the economy and job creation, the war in Iraq and the Bush administration's education policies proved more important to Hispanic voters than immigration issues, the William C. Velasquez Institute found in its exit polls of Latinos in Texas and seven other states that account for 82 percent of registered Latino voters.

The Pew Hispanic Center examined exit polls conducted for national media organizations. The Velasquez Institute, a nonpartisan think tank studying Latino issues, released its findings last week.

"It was really the totality of issues that drove people to the polls," said Michael Bustamante, spokesman for the Velasquez Institute and the Latino Policy Coalition.

"It began with the Republican policies that came out in the spring that really pushed Latinos to the streets to march. And from there it just grew to when the Republicans decided to forgo a reasonable immigration policy approach for (border) fences, and then was topped with the war in Iraq and the direction that the country is going in."

The Pew Hispanic Center found an 11 percent swing of the Latino vote in favor of Democrats when this year's poll results were compared with those taken two years ago. The 11 percent compares with a 6 percent shift toward Democrats among non-Hispanic whites and a 3 percent change among blacks.

Latinos went 69 percent to 30 percent in favor of Democrats, compared with a 58-to-40-percent split two years ago and 61-to-37-percent four years ago.

This year's election results threw control of the House and Senate to the Democrats.

Some Hispanic activists contend the shift is proof that House Republicans' determination to crack down on illegal immigration has posed a serious setback in the GOP's wooing of the fast-growing Latino vote.

"It was a failed strategy, and for Republicans especially it demonstrates a huge lost opportunity," said Cecilia Muñoz, vice president of the National Council of La Raza.


'Never a top-tier issue'
But experts who have examined the polling data said it was a mistake to put so much emphasis on policies toward illegal immigration.

"It is important to note that immigration in the Latino population is never a top-tier issue," said Gabriel Escobar, associate director of the Pew Hispanic Center. "Nor is it for the rest of the population."

Eligible U.S. voters must be citizens 18 or older.

Even as Republicans nationally drew 30 percent of the Latino vote, there were bright spots for some GOP candidates.

In Texas, where 21 percent of registered voters have Hispanic surnames, Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison cruised to re-election with 62 percent of the overall vote, gaining the support of 44 percent of Latino voters, according to an exit poll.

"I have maintained great relations with Hispanic leaders," Hutchison said recently, touting her support for educational institutions serving Hispanics, border infrastructure and border health improvements.

Other races proved that immigration was a mixed bag for Republican candidates.

In House races in Arizona, hard-liners J.D. Hayworth and Randy Graf lost and Sen. Jon Kyl carried 41 percent of the Latino vote while sponsoring a plan that would require illegal immigrants to go home before they could apply for legal status.

Hutchison's race offers a hint about the limitation of exit polls.

The National Election Pool, which conducted polling for the media organizations, pegged her Hispanic support at 44 percent. The Velasquez exit poll, however, estimated that nearly 54 percent of Latino voters in Texas supported Hutchison to 36 percent for Democrat Barbara Ann Radnofsky.

Escobar was careful in assessing the exit polls, noting that taking mere samples of people who vote left open the door to inaccuracies and doesn't fully capture the reasons why people vote for one party over another.

"It may be that this election was more a reflection of this Democratic wave than any sort of fixed tack to the right or left by the Latino voters," Escobar said. "People will be analyzing these numbers and reading different things into them."


Diverse voting styles
Adding to the complexity of deciphering the Hispanic vote is the fact that it spans different populations, said Nestor Rodriguez, co-director of the University of Houston's Center for Immigration Research. U.S.-born Hispanics may vote very differently from naturalized citizens or the young, he said.

"The seasoned Latino voters, they may have changed more because of the general concern of the war and dissatisfaction with Bush policies," Rodriguez said.

"Some new Latino voters who have become citizens may have been more affected by concerns of immigration."

A key question unanswered by exit polls: determining whether Hispanic voting participation surged.

Immigrant-rights advocates had vowed to register hundreds of thousands of new voters for the midterm elections, linking their campaign to the House's push for a tough enforcement-only approach to immigration. It was clear even before Election Day that their effort to register 1 million new voters would fall well short.

Less clear is whether Hispanics, who typically lag well behind other groups in their rate of voter participation, proved more motivated to cast ballots this year because of immigration or other concerns.

The answer about turnout will have to wait next spring, after the Census Bureau releases the results of the Current Population Survey it will undertake in March.

michelle.mittelstadt@chron.com