With three weeks to go until election day the Latino Decisions tracking poll reports the first signs of increasing enthusiasm and vote intention among Latino registered voters in 2010. Last week the Pew Hispanic Center released a report indicating that just 51% of Latinos planned to vote in the November midterm.
Latino Decisions tracking poll data report 74.9% of Latino registered voters state they are “almost certain” to vote, up from 72.6% last week, and 65.6% two weeks ago. When asked about how enthusiastic they were about participating in the midterm election, 50.2% of Latinos said they were “very enthusiastic” about voting in November, up from 41.3% last week, and 40.3% two weeks ago. In contrast to the Latino Decisions tracking poll, which surveys Latino voters on a continual basis every week, the Pew Hispanic Center survey was fielded August 17 – September 19, at an earlier point when many Latino voter mobilization drives had not yet begun in earnest.
In recent weeks, Latino civic groups such as Mi Familia Vota, NALEO, NCLR, Southwest Voter, and others have started large scale voter education and mobilization drives. However, some very notable gaps do exist among Latinos in terms of enthusiasm in 2010. Young Latino voters who mobilized to vote in record numbers during the 2008 election, report much lower rates of voter engagement in 2010.
