“¡Milagro! ¡Milagro!” Barack Obama: Winning with the Latino Vote 

At 11:00pm on Tuesday evening, as CNN declared Sen. Barack Obama had surpassed the necessary 270 electoral votes, Democratic party loyalists crowding into Finnegans Wake bar erupted into jubilant dancing and applause. 

Although the owner of Finnegans Wake offered a traditional Celtic toast, the victory was actually due to an unprecedented level of support from Latino voters across the nation, turning what was expected to be a close election - similar to the 2000 race of Al Gore and George Bush- into a relatively comfortable victory for the Illinois Democrat.

Based on CNN exit polls, the researchers at Pew Hispanic Research found what was characterized as a “major reversal,” as (75% of former Hillary Clinton supporters) and nearly two-thirds of all Latino voters (67%) pulled the lever for Senator Obama.

The Coordinator of the Latino vote in Pennsylvania for the Obama campaign, Jesse Salazar, who engineered an incredible Hispanic vote of 72 percent for Obama, spoke with El Hispano after the election, said “We really killed with the Latino vote. I was getting calls from people working the polls saying “Milagro, milagro, “It’s a Miracle.”

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