President Obama may have a lot to worry about if a new poll on voting intentions ends up reflecting voter turnout in November.
According to a Gallup poll released today, only 64 percent of registered Latino voters say they will definitely vote this fall, which is 14 percent lower than the current national average of 78 percent of Americans.
In the fall of 2008, Hispanic turnout intentions were eight points below the national average.
If the voting intentions were to hold, Hispanic voters would be one of the groups with the lowest expected turnout, along with 18- to 29-year-olds.
Fifty-eight percent of U.S. registered voters aged 18 to 29 say they will “definitely vote” this fall, well below the current national average.
If turnout among Latinos and young voters is low, Obama’s chances at reelection will suffer, as they make up two important parts of his expected coalition.
Recently, the battle over quantifying the state of the Latino vote broke out into the open, as polls which came out on the same day, had differing breakdowns for Obama and Romney.
A Quinnipiac poll said Romney had seen gains among Hispanics, registering at 30 percent support for the first time, but experts told NBC Latino the poll had a number of problems.
Later, the Pew Research Center came out with their poll which showed Obama at 65 percent support and Romney at 25 percent.
Gallup says its voting intention scale is just one of seven items it uses to assess the likelihood to vote in its complete likely voter model, so they will have a better idea of voter intentions in the fall.
