Obama winning Hillary's Hispanic voters

During the Democratic primaries, Hillary was carrying the majority of Hispanic voters over Obama. This was supposed to indicate a major weakness for Obama in the general election. Now we get the news that the breakdown of voters who decided between Obama and Hillary simply does not carry over to a contest between Obama and McCain. From McClatchy News:

By Lesley Clark | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Barack Obama has picked up support from nearly all the Hispanic voters who voted for rival Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries, giving him a nearly three-to-one lead over Republican John McCain among Hispanics, a poll released Thursday shows.

The Pew Hispanic Center survey found Obama with 66 percent of the Hispanic vote to McCain's 23 percent.

The results represent a "sharp reversal" in Obama's fortunes from the primaries, when he lost the Latino vote to Clinton by nearly two-to-one, prompting speculation that Hispanics were leery of voting for a black candidate, said Susan Minushkin, the center's deputy director.

Instead, the survey found that three times as many respondents said that being black would help Obama with Latino voters. A majority — 53 percent — said his race would make no difference to Latino voters.

More than 76 percent of Hispanics who said they voted for Clinton now say they're leaning toward voting for Obama, while just 8 percent said they were leaning toward McCain.

The poll by the nonpartisan research organization is based on a telephone survey of 2,015 Hispanics, 892 of whom were registered voters. Interviews in either English or Spanish were conducted June 9 through July 13. The survey carries a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.

The poll results and voting outcomes from the Democratic primaries simply don't carry over to the general election campaign when the choice is between Obama and McCain.