In 2004, exit polling estimated that George W. Bush received in the neighborhood of 44 percent of the Hispanic vote. In 2006, the Republicans' estimated share within the voting bloc was down to 30 percent according to exit polling. Remarkably, John McCain isn't even doing this well according to Gallup polling of over 25,000 registered voters over the course of the month of May.

It's no secret that Obama owes his nomination in large part to overwhelming support among blacks, and that high level of support will likely be evident in the general election. Roughly 9 in 10 blacks say they would vote for Obama if the election were held today, while McCain's support among blacks is in the low single digits. Blacks are typically a strong Democratic constituency, so the impact of the first black presidential candidate on a major-party ticket may be more evident in terms of motivating high black turnout than in overwhelming support for the Democrat.

Obama did not fare well against Hillary Clinton among Hispanics in the 2008 primaries, but the early indications are that he will do well among this increasingly Democratic group in the general election. The May data show Obama with a 62% to 29% advantage over McCain among Hispanics. [emphasis added]

Doing some back of the napkin calculations, it would appear that the margin of error for the subgroup of Hispanic voters is roughly plus or minus 2 percentage points, or at most plus or minus 2.5 percentage points. As a result, McCain can't write off his historic weakness among this key voting segment to statistical noise.

This, of course, does not mean that Barack Obama can take the Hispanic vote for granted. Obama, like any other candidate, will have to work hard for their vote over the coming months. But these numbers underscore a couple of key points. Even during the waning moments of the Democratic primaries when voters in one camp or the other appeared more likely to say that they would not back the eventual party nominee in a general election, Obama still beat McCain among Hispanic voters by better than a 2-to-1 ratio -- greatly undercutting the argument that support for Obama is particularly weak within the Hispanic community. What's more, these numbers suggest that far from it being the case that McCain will be immensely tough to beat in the Southwest, let alone him making a serious play for California, Obama will have a real opportunity to pick up states throughout the West that the Republicans have carried in recent years -- Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and perhaps others as well.