Report: Obama grabs sizable Hispanic vote

WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 (UPI) -- Hispanics, by a 2-to-1 margin, voted for Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden over Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin, a Pew report indicates.

The report from the Pew Hispanic Center released Wednesday indicated 66 percent of Hispanics surveyed voted for the Obama-Biden ticket while 32 percent favored McCain-Palin.

The report, a project of the Pew Research Center in Washington, indicated 8 percent of the Hispanic electorate was Latino, unchanged from 2004.

Obama carried the Latino vote by large margins in states with large Latino populations, the survey said. In Florida, for example, he won 57 percent of the Latino vote. President George Bush carried 56 percent of the Latino vote in Florida in 2004.

The president-elect carried 78 percent of the Latino vote in New Jersey, 76 percent in Nevada, 74 percent in California, and 73 percent in Colorado.

The report analyzed exit poll results for the Hispanic vote nationally and in the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico and Texas.