Immigration is only the 6th-most-important issue for Latino voters in California when casting a vote for a candidate for U.S. Senator or for U.S. Congress, according to a statewide survey conducted by Univision.
When registered Latino voters were asked to name their most important issues, the results, in order, were: education (21%), jobs (16%), government spending and the deficit (15%), social security (13%), “how what they do will affect my wallet” (10%), health care (9%), immigration (8%), and crime and personal safety (5%).
An overwhelming 86% of those surveyed support comprehensive immigration reform. However, a majority–53%–of registered Latino voters in California also answered that they believe that, “…we should require borders to be secured before providing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.”
Furthermore, when asked, “Which of the following is your major concern or complaint about the Republican Party?”, only ten percent of those surveyed named Republican opposition to immigration reform.
The number one gripe was that Republicans “care mostly about corporations and big business” (17%). Other concerns, in order, were that Republicans: care only for themselves (17%), favor the rich (14%), are against immigration reform (10%), don’t stand up strongly for their beliefs (7%), “don’t understand people like me” (6%), and favoring white people not minorities (5%).
The survey also asked Latino voters in California their opinions about the Affordable Care Act, and while the survey found that 65 percent supported the ACA, more than 40% cited increased health care costs, high deductibles, and reduced work hours as concerns.
“Latinos are focused on pocketbook issues. They want to know how a proposition or legislation is going to affect them financially, ” said Hector Barajas, a partner at the Revolvis political consulting firm, and a leading expert on Latino issues.
Barajas advises those seeking to make Obamacare an issue not to attack the program itself, but instead to focus on the costs.
To illustrate how to communicate with Latino voters, Barajas singled out legislation authored by State Senator Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) that would ban plastic grocery bags and mandate that store owners charge a 10-cent fee on every paper bag.
“While a 10-cent-per-bag mandate may not seem like much to some, when you’re barely making ends meet on minimum wage, it all adds up quickly,” Barajas. told Breitbart News.
Some other interesting tidbits from the survey data include the fact that fully 28% of California’s Latino voters are millennials (ages 18-34); that 61% of respondents most closely identified with the Democrat Party and only 15% identified themselves as being Republican; and that 6% of Latino households are Spanish-speaking only, 30% are English-only, and 64% are bilingual.
The survey, commissioned by Univision, was conducted by Moore Information. 400 interviews were completed statewide, with an additional 100 interviews later conducted in the Central Valley specifically. The margin of error in the poll is +/- 4%.
According to Nielsen Media Services, Univision is one of the largest audiences of Spanish-language television viewers in the world, with local stations in over 50 markets with large Hispanic and Latino populations.
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