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Poll: Obama got big share of Cuban-American vote, won among other Florida Hispanics

 
Published Nov. 9, 2012

President Barack Obama nearly won the solidly Republican Cuban-American vote in Florida and rolled up huge margins with every other Hispanic group in the state, according to an exit poll performed by a firm that worked for his campaign.

Obama won Cuban-Americans who voted on Election Day, taking 53 percent of their vote compared to 47 percent for Republican Mitt Romney, who built up a lead among those who cast absentee and early in-person ballots, according to the survey of 4,866 voters conducted by Bendixen & Amandi International.

Romney narrowly carried Cuban-Americans, 52 to 48 percent, which is a decrease for Republicans when compared to 2008.

"Obama is picking the Republican lock in Florida," Fernand Amandi said, noting that Hispanics are Florida's fastest-growing segment of the electorate.

But some conservatives doubt the numbers, accusing the firm of undersampling Republican precincts, which Bendixen & Amandi denies.

"Like every election cycle, Sergio Bendixen, who is infamously known for the inaccuracy of his polls, is once again peddling inaccurate exit polling data about Cuban-American voting trends," Mauricio Claver-Carone, executive director of Cuba Democracy Advocates, wrote on his Capitol Hill Cubans blog.

But Bendixen points out that his bottom-line exit-poll numbers mirror the figures from the exit polls conducted by Edison Research for the news media, which found Obama winning the overall Hispanic vote 60 to 39 percent over Romney.

In Bendixen's poll, Florida Hispanics broke 61 to 39 percent in Obama's favor — a one-point difference from Edison. Edison's poll indicated Obama may have won the Cuban-American vote, 49 to 47 percent, but the results were well within the survey's error margin.

Florida's second-largest Hispanic group, Puerto Ricans, gave Obama out-sized support over Romney, 83 to 17 percent in Bendixen's survey.

"This is an ominous, ominous sign for Republicans," Amandi said. His partner, Sergio Bendixen, added that "Puerto Ricans in Florida are voting like Puerto Ricans in New York … solidly Democratic."

Bendixen & Amandi produced Obama's Spanish-language ads and consulted for the campaign. This exit poll, they said, was conducted independently of the Obama campaign. They surveyed voters on Election Day as well as during early in-person voting and by phone for those who cast absentee ballots. The exit poll was conducted in six counties: Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Orange, Osceola and Hillsborough.

Absentee-ballot voters, who tend to be older than the rest of the electorate, were the least likely to back Obama when it came to Cuban-American voters. They backed Romney 74 to 26 percent over Obama.

The fight for the Hispanic vote was particularly pronounced in Florida, with the Romney campaign airing a scorcher of a Spanish-language ad late in the election that featured Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro's niece speaking in favor of Obama.

The Obama campaign hit back with an ad featuring former Miami Mayor Manny Diaz that accused Romney of trying to exploit the "suffering" of Cuban-Americans.

The "offensive" Romney ad may have backfired when it came to Venezuelan voters, Bendixen said.

Venezuelans, a fast-growing group, backed Obama over Romney 76 to 24 percent, which tracked the overall results for South Americans, who accounted for just under a quarter of the Hispanic voters interviewed.

Central-Americans supported Obama over Romney 74 to 26.

Would Florida Sen. Marco Rubio help bring Hispanics into the Republican fold as a future candidate? Bendixen said it is too early to tell.

But, he said, former Gov. Jeb Bush, who is fluent in Spanish and has cautioned his party about the tenor of its immigration debate, is a different story.

"If Jeb runs, it would challenge these numbers," Bendixen said.

Florida's elections results aren't final yet but the Hispanic role in the election is clear.

"If Barack Obama wins Florida it will be only and strictly and decisively because of the Hispanic vote," Amandi said.