Hispanic voters in states with large Latino populations -- including California, Florida, Illinois, New York and Texas -- are seen as critical to winning the national election. Together, these five states represent 85 percent of the Electoral College votes needed to win a presidential election.
Although the Hispanic vote skews toward Democratic candidates 70 percent of the time, as a group they are not a guaranteed Democrat block with a significant portion, especially younger Latinos, viewing themselves as independents.
How important is the Hispanic vote for the Republican Party, and particularly President Bush, in 2004?
The importance of this largely Spanish-speaking contingent becomes evident from one visit to the Republican National Committee Web site, which has a separate Spanish-language section.
Pamela Mantis, deputy press secretary for the Republican National Committee, said the RNC was taking a proactive approach to reaching Hispanic voters and candidates at the grass-roots level.
She said the RNC was doing targeted voter registrations and attempting to identify and to target minority candidates for office through recruitment and training efforts, mostly at the local level.
She added that the RNC spent $750,000 during the 2002 election cycle supporting non-incumbent, Hispanic candidates, at both the local and federal level, the highest level ever.
In addition, Republican congressional aides said party was integral to the establishment of the Hispanic Congressional Committee earlier this year. The body is billed as a conservative answer the overly liberal and Democrat-dominated Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
The origins of the Republican group lay in the fight over president Bush's failed nomination of Miguel Estrada for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which was successfully blocked by Senate Democrats.
Conventional wisdom holds that Estrada's nomination was a not so subtle bid by President Bush for the Hispanic vote by positioning a Hispanic for a position on the Supreme Court.
Conference members, all Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, rallied against what they viewed was an effort by Caucus Democrats and "leftist activist groups" to peg Estrada as Hispanic in name only. Republicans also, some charged, were clearly attempting to gain mileage on the issue with Hispanic voters.
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