5 Voting Groups to Watch this Presidential Cycle

Hispanics

The difference was palpable. When John McCain and Barack Obama spoke in the same city at the same conference on the same day, McCain's speech was met with polite applause and the nodding of heads. Obama's appearance, to a larger audience a few hours later, received robust cheers as audience members waved "Latinos for Obama" signs. The candidates, appearing in July at the League of United Latin American Citizens' convention, were both trying to bolster support among a pivotal swing constituency.

McCain is counting on support from Hispanic voters to help him win key states.

Now the largest minority group in the United States, Hispanics have historically trended Democratic. In 2004, however, Republicans pushed hard for Hispanic support, launching the "Viva Bush" campaign and flooding key regions with Spanish-language ads. Exit polls showed that President Bush got the votes of about 40 percent of this group, up from the 35 percent he garnered in 2000, helping him win swing states like New Mexico. His campaign manager, Ken Mehlman, called Bush's percentage of the Latino vote "the single most important number" to come out of the election.

Earlier this year, there were some experts who thought Republicans could do well with Hispanic voters because of the divisiveness of the primary battle between Obama and Hillary Clinton, who had strong Hispanic support. But today, polls suggest that Demo-crats are pulling Latinos back into their ranks. In a recent survey from the Pew Research Center, Obama was leading McCain among Hispanics, 66 percent to 23 percent. Latino respondents said education, the cost of living, jobs, and healthcare were their most important issues, and favored Obama strongly over McCain on all of them. "I think people had questions at first because of the primaries, which showed that Hispanics favored Hillary Clinton by 2 to 1, but a bad economy and party ID have already converted Hispanics to Obama," says Larry Sabato of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

If that holds up, Obama could turn what was a solid-red American West in 2004 into more of a checkerboard. Strong Hispanic support could make the difference in New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado, says Sabato. The only downside? This demographic has a reputation for not turning out as heavily as some other ethnic groups.

Evangelicals

Just a few days after Bush won re-election in 2004, evangelical leaders warned the GOP not to forget the mostly white evangelical Protestants. By throwing 78 percent of their votes his way, evangelicals helped Bush lock up the close race against Democratic Sen. John Kerry. Some evangelicals, fearing their influence would be short-lived, formed a coalition to register millions of additional evangelical voters and prevent moderate Republicans like former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani or John McCain from gaining the next presidential nomination.

Four years later, McCain locked up the nomination after the evangelical darling, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, dropped out in March. This left the evangelicals without a favorite and with an unclear role in this election. So far, McCain's support among evangelicals—at 61 percent—isn't as big as Bush's was in the summer of 2004. And Barack Obama has made it apparent that he plans to go after this consistently Republican voting bloc by speaking of his faith openly and touting his Democratic version of Bush's faith-based initiatives. "There are plenty of evangelicals that admire Senator Obama because he's talked about his religion so comfortably, and they understand he has innovative positions on a number of issues," says John Green, a senior fellow with the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. "On the other hand, he's pro-choice on abortion."

Obama may be making less progress than he'd like in attracting these influential voters, who comprised 23 percent of the electorate in 2004. A Pew survey from July showed that 25 percent of white evangelicals were supporting Obama, compared with the 26 percent who supported Kerry in the summer of 2004. Kerry went on to take only 21 percent. "[Obama's] level of support is about what Democratic candidates usually get in that religious community," Green says. "But John McCain's numbers are down for what Republicans are supposed to get." The poll found 14 percent of evangelicals to be undecided.

In order for McCain to entice evangelicals to come out on his behalf, he will have to ramp up enthusiasm for his candidacy. But how he does that could be tricky, says Green. By touting his conservative credentials, such as his pro-life abortion stance, he could bring in the skeptical conservative evangelicals. At the same time, by playing up his reputation as a political moderate, McCain could attract younger and more moderate evangelical voters who care about social change, Green says.

At least one thing is clear—it's not going to be a repeat of 2004. "Evangelicals are not monolithic, and in this particular election they seem to be more diverse than they were in 2004," Green says. "They can either stay home or make a choice—John McCain or Barack Obama—however difficult that choice may be."

African-Americans

Since 1964, when federal poll taxes were finally outlawed and Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater campaigned for president by courting "backlash" voters opposed to the civil rights movement, African-Americans have voted overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates. Bill Clinton enjoyed a particularly strong rapport with African-American voters in the 1990s. George W. Bush captured just 11 percent of the African-American vote in 2004—and even that was better than many of his Republican predecessors managed.

This year, there is an obvious difference. As an African-American, Obama has been warmly embraced by black voters. A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 95 percent of likely African-American voters say they plan to vote for Obama in November, a number that exceeds not only the 4-to-1 or 5-to-1 advantage he held over Hillary Clinton in many state primaries but also the level of support the Rev. Jesse Jackson achieved in his 1988 presidential bid.

The African-American community's support for Obama was not automatic. Clinton, bolstered by her husband's long-standing ties to the black community, initially enjoyed a sizable advantage over Obama. One poll in January 2007 gave her a 24 percentage-point lead. By Super Tuesday, however, there had been a reversal, as Bill Clinton explained at the time: "The minute it became possible that [Obama] could be the nominee, he was going to win the lion's share of the African-American vote." (The former president's racially tinged comments before the South Carolina primary arguably abetted the trend.)

Obama's resonance with black voters could have profound election-night implications, although any such prediction is contingent upon turnout. Ohio, Florida, and Nevada, all won by Bush in 2004, have been mentioned as states that could be turned blue by a record turnout of African-American voters. There is also some speculation that Georgia, which last voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in 1992, has at least an outside chance of tipping into Obama's column, given the state's large African-American population. Because turnout rates there would most likely have to increase by more than 50 percent, it's a daunting challenge, but one the Obama campaign appears to think is worth mounting. It spent more than $200,000 on tele-vision advertising in Georgia between April and June. Several thousand volunteers, meanwhile, have been dispatched nationwide to boost registration and voter turnout.

Women

At a Washington social event several weeks ago to celebrate New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney's new book on gender discrimination, Hillary Clinton received an impassioned reception from the mostly female crowd. Maloney touted Clinton's accomplishment of nearly breaking the glass ceiling and credited, in part, misogyny and sexism for bringing the former first lady down. But her admirers weren't bashing Barack Obama. And some members sported large, red "Hillary Supports Obama—So Do I!!" pins.

Even in the most pro-Clinton environment, the post-Clinton reality was afoot. While some former supporters aren't exactly gung-ho about the Illinois senator—with only 12 percent saying recently that they were excited about Obama, according to an Associated Press and Yahoo! News poll—Democratic women have mostly coalesced around Obama. Seventy-six percent of female former Clinton supporters plan to vote for Obama, while 18 percent plan to support McCain, according to a Lifetime Networks poll last month.

More broadly, Obama is doing well with women in general, leading McCain 49 percent to 38 percent nationally. Ten percent remain undecided. Further, 81 percent of Democratic women surveyed said they would vote for Obama, and 81 percent of Republican women said they would vote for McCain. Obama's advantage comes from women who say they are independent; among them, Obama leads 42 percent to McCain's 30 percent. "Both candidates have solidified the women in their base," says Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, who worked on the Lifetime poll. "And now it's a battle for the independent women, who are leaning pretty substantially for Obama."

This isn't surprising. Women, as part of what political scientists like to call the "gender gap," generally trend Democratic. Fifty-four percent of women voted for Al Gore in 2000, compared with 43 percent of women who voted for Bush. And John Kerry received 51 percent of the female vote, while Bush took 48 percent. "Women will elect the next president, and their rate of enthusiasm will determine it," explains Lake, adding that Obama should be able to win if he can garner more than 50 percent of the women's vote. "Women voted for Kerry, but only by 3 points, which was overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of men for Bush."

The wild card this election cycle, at least for a while, was Clinton and whether her embittered supporters would still vote Democratic, flock to McCain, or stay at home. Lake says that it is more likely that Obama will chip away Clinton supporters from McCain than vice versa. And that could happen soon, with Clinton joining Obama on the campaign trail in Nevada and Florida.

Youth

Facing a recent panel of some of the most prominent political pundits, a young woman in the audience had one simple question. How, she asked, could young people prove that they were informed members of the electorate? In the primaries, she told the audience at a panel hosted by the Student Association for Voter Empowerment, there was a perception that young people were merely influenced to vote by "hope," a buzzword of Obama's presidential campaign, and not actually by issues. "I feel like there is a bias—that our voices don't count," she complained.

The answer, from panelist and PBS journalist Judy Woodruff, probably didn't satisfy the questioner. "If you vote, if you make a difference in this election, the media is going to pay attention," Woodruff said.

The only problem is that voting—or failing to vote—has always been the issue when it comes to youth. Since 1972, the first election in which 18-to-20-year-olds were eligible to vote, turnout among the under-30 crowd has steadily declined. In 2004, this trend seemed to turn around as the number of young voters increased. Get-out-the-vote organizations touted the fact that there were 4.2 million more voters under 30 than there were in 2000.

But this statistic doesn't tell the whole story. Since turnout was up overall in 2004, the youth vote represented 17 percent of the electorate—the same percentage as in 2000. There was a slightly better tale in 2006, as young voters helped propel Jim Webb in Virginia and Jon Tester in Montana into the Senate. But overall, despite frequent hopes, this voting bloc has yet to determine the outcome of a presidential election.

This year, there's perhaps even more hype surrounding the youth vote, and it could actually be warranted. Primary turnout among young people doubled, tripled, and even quadrupled in many states, compared with primaries in 2000 and 2004, according to Rock the Vote, a youth-oriented voter registration group that often partners with entertainment companies. In some communities, more young voters are registering, and anecdotal reports suggest more young people are volunteering for the campaigns as well. "You don't write off anyone," says Matt Segal, the executive director of SAVE, who encourages both of the candidates to ramp up their efforts to attract the youth vote. "Young voters are susceptible to the politicians who reach out to them." A swing state like Wisconsin might go to Obama if young people turn out in large numbers, as some suggest they will. If they're right, that really would be a change.