GOP Hopes to Make Inroads With Hispanics

Democratic presidential hopeful New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson responds to a question about NAFTA during a presidential forum hosted by the AFL-CIO at Soldier Field in Chicago, Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2007. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast) (Charles Rex Arbogast - AP)

LOS ANGELES -- Democrats hold an edge with Hispanics in national elections, but Latinos' growing tendency to register as independents and split their vote between parties is buoying Republican prospects for 2008.

Younger and college-educated Hispanics in particular offer fertile ground for the GOP, new data show. And while no one suggests Republicans have become the party of choice for the nation's fastest-growing minority, Democrats have been gradually losing ground.

"The Democrats began in the 1980s to slowly lose Latino registration," said Antonio Gonzalez, president of the William C. Velasquez Institute, a San Antonio-based research group that studies Hispanic issues. "It's drip, drip, drip."

President Bush claimed 40 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004, a record for a Republican presidential candidate. But it will be challenging for the party to repeat or build on that performance _ Bush's popularity has withered and many Hispanics were soured by remarks by GOP conservative hard-liners during the immigration debate.

Although Hispanics tend to vote Democratic, the percentage of Latinos who call themselves Democrats has declined in the last decade, even as the overall number of Hispanic voters climbed.

In California _ home to the nation's largest Hispanic population and a coveted cache of 55 electoral votes for the 2008 presidential election _ nearly two of three Hispanic voters were registered Democrats in the mid-1990s. By 2006, that figure dropped as low as 56 percent, according to polling and registration data.

Research last year by the Public Policy Institute of California found that Hispanics in California are about equally divided among those who describe themselves as conservative, liberal and moderate.

And many Hispanic voters are choosing no party at all.

In 2002, the institute said 18 percent of likely Hispanic voters were registered as independents or some other party. By 2006, the percentage had climbed to 22 percent. Republicans gained a few percentage points in registration over that time.

Democrats continue to hold a healthy advantage with Hispanics, and nearly seven in 10 Hispanic voters supported Democratic congressional candidates last year. Party leaders say independent Hispanics lean Democratic, so the registration percentage dip is not as significant as the figures might suggest.

"They may have left ... the party, but they haven't left the Democrats," said California Democratic Chairman Art Torres. "It's both a state and a national trend."

Economic and generational forces are influencing Hispanic politics.