NDN Buzz: Weekend Edition

With the elections just two days away now, it was a very busy week here at NDN. Yesterday, our recent polling on immigration reform was featured in the lead article in the Wall Street Journal, an excellent piece by Jonathan Weisman:

Between 2000 and this year, the Hispanic electorate will have doubled, to 12% of voters, according to Census data and NDN, a Democratic group that studies the electorate. That growth has been concentrated in once-Republican states, not only in the Mountain West but in the South. By 2006, Hispanics represented 31% of voters in New Mexico, 13% in Nevada, 11% in Florida and 8% in Colorado.

President Bush and his political team were able to ride that wave, nearly doubling the GOP's share of the Latino vote from 21% in 1996 to 40% in 2004, according to exit polls. Then came 2006 and the Republican Party embrace of get-tough legislation on illegal immigration, followed by Republican efforts to kill bipartisan bills to stiffen border enforcement and provide illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship.

In 2006, Republican support among Hispanics fell to 30%. Even Sen. McCain, who co-authored the bipartisan immigration legislation, does not appear able to reverse the trend. An NDN poll in August, when Sens. Obama and McCain were virtually tied in the polls, found Sen. Obama leading among Colorado Hispanics 56% to 26% and Nevada Hispanics 62% to 20%.

Simon hit on similar themes involving the Hispanic electorate and the country's changing electoral map in the San Francisco Chronicle and Bloomberg. His election analysis was also featured in DemFromCT's daily poll roundup on DailyKos, which linked to his front-page Huffington Post article, as well as in Newsday, the Arizona Republic, and the Huffington Post (again).

Andres was also featured in the Wall Street Journal speaking about the increasing importance of early voting, Michael was featured in the Council on Foreign Relations discussing energy prices and cutting carbon emissions, and Rob was featured in Grist speaking about clean infrastructure and a second economic stimulus.

Finally, aside from the print and Web media, NDN also made several TV appearances last week. Our event with Simon and Joe Trippi was broadcast on C-SPAN, Simon went on BBC World News to discuss the election (relevant section begins at 1:40), and Andres appeared on several Nevada TV channels, including Fox and ABC, condemning illegal voter suppression tactics targeting Hispanic voters.