And they respond best to messages designed for the general electorate. The first false assumption is that a little Spanish can help build a Latino connection. Hispanic voters reward candidates who have mastered Spanish, but speaking bad Spanish can be seen as pandering. Spanish is the preferred language at home for about a third of Latino voters, according to a survey of 12 battleground states by Greenberg Quinlan Research for the Gore campaign. But candidates need to know that a majority of Hispanic voters prefer English at home.
Hispanic voters are also like other voters in their priorities.
The ranking of issues by Latinos and the rest of the electorate last year were similar, with education, Social Security, and healthcare emerging as leading concerns, although there were important differences in degree. Education, for example, stood out as the top priority for Hispanics in battleground states. The economy was also of greater concern to Hispanics. They are more vulnerable economically and less likely to have benefits at work - and thus have many reasons to vote Democratic. Notably, Hispanics gave a low priority last year to immigration.