Democrats: Don't think you've got the Latino vote wrapped up yet.

The Pew Hispanic center just published a report about Latinos and the 2010 elections. There's a big surprise in it.  The report, like we are used to, finds that the majority of registered Latino voters tend to vote Democrat. However, It also finds that for this particular upcoming election, Republican voters are far more inclined to show up to the polls that Democratic voters. 44% of Republican Latino voters say they have given "a lot of thought" to this years election, versus only 28% of Democrat Latinos. This could be alarming news for democratic candidates in states like Colorado, New Mexico, Florida, and Nevada where, the 2008 presidential election was decided by the Latino vote and  turnout was at an all-time high.

So what is my suggestion for Democratic candidates?  No doubt, its....



Direct mail to Latino voters.... Now. You need to motivate Hispanic voters to get to the polls and vote for your candidate. With a direct mail campaign, you can quickly target Hispanic voters efficiently by language preference and region, and do it multiple times before the Nov 2.

Three tips:

• A good direct mail list provider can decipher who prefers Spanish, and who prefers english with targeted mail lists. So you're not asking the quesiton Spanish or English?   
• You also need to be sure your Spanish and English translations are not only relevant, but culturally tap the motivational factors that will inspire a voter to cast his ballot for your candidate. Get some one who know your region's Hispanic market in charge of the Spanish/English copy/concepts. 
• Lastly. find a provider who already has relationships with printers list providers and works on a large scale with them already. This will help the pricing to stretch the dollars further and turn around an efficient mail drop with out snags.

Did I mention, Hispanidad is great option for all the above? 

You can download the pew report off this site for more insight the Latino voter this election here: http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/127.pdf