Tag: Presidential exit polling

In New York City, Immigrants Swell the Ranks of First-Time Voters

By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

Over forty percent of first-time New York City voters in this presidential election were foreign born, according to a study released by the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC).

“Immigrants continue to swell the ranks of first-time voters in New York City and remain a driving force in the growth of the city’s electorate,” wrote the authors of the 2008 New Americans Exit Poll, professors Lorraine C. Minnite of Barnard College and John Mollenkopf, the director of the Graduate Center for Urban Studies at the City University of New York.

Immigrants were 41.1 percent of those voting for the first time. This continued a trend from the three previous presidential elections, when at least three in ten of immigrant voters were voting for the first time, according to the study.

Among foreign-born voters, a large proportion became citizens only recently. Nearly 18 percent achieved citizenship during the last two years, and an additional 25 percent had done so between 2000 and 2005.

(more…)

Latino and Immigrant Votes Likely Crucial to Obama’s Victory

JERSEY CITY, NJ – Suman Raghunathan, FI2W consultant

Over 63-million Americans voted for Barack Obama yesterday to be the nation’s 44th President, giving him a 53% to 46% victory over John McCain.

Pundits are saying that Obama’s historic victory hinged on suburban white voters turning out for him, on older white women, and overwhelming levels of support from immigrant voters. Certainly many of these voters were Latino – according to the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO), record Latino voter turnout nationwide in early voting was crucial to Obama’s victories in Virginia and Florida. NALEO is projecting over 9.4 million Latinos voted yesterday, and according to CNN News, 66% of Latinos supported Obama.

As we’ve written before at Feet in 2 Worlds, immigrant voters also include many other communities – particularly in the ‘salad’ of immigrant groups living in New York City.

The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund also saw large numbers of Asian American voters cast their vote yesterday. But what about immigrant voters as a whole?

Stay tuned for more details tomorrow on how these immigrants voted from the New York Immigration Coalition’s New Americans Exit Poll. Run by Barnard Political Science Professor Lorraine Minnite, the poll, the nation’s first and longest continuing effort to ask immigrant voters how and why they voted, reached 2500 voters at 32 polling sites in all five NYC boroughs. In addition to asking respondents the usual exit polling information about themselves – including if they were voting for the first time – the poll also will have information on the top issues that determined immigrants’ voting decisions, how they feel about the federal financial bailout, and any problems they encountered while voting.

We’ll have more details and analysis on immigrant voting patterns soon.