Hispanics Flex Muscle For Clinton On Super Tuesday

The California Bay Area NBC11.com reports that Latinos came out in big numbers for Sen. Hillary Clinton in California on Super Tuesday, according to exit polls, which said she earned about 70 percent of the Latino vote compared to about 30 percent for Sen. Barack Obama.

"So what does that say? Bottom line, Latinos are a major political force in the state of California," Albert Camarillo of Stanford University told NBC11 about how many Latinos came out to vote.

The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza lists the Hispanic community as a whole as a "winner" for Super Tuesday because of the clear influence it is having in this razor-thin race.

Here is Cillizza:

As they did in Nevada's caucuses, Hispanics gave Clinton her margin of victory in several must-win states yesterday. In California, which was an emerging battleground between the two candidates, Clinton won Hispanics by 40 points -- a massive boost for the New York senator considering that Hispanics accounted for roughly 30 percent of the Democratic vote in the Golden State. The results were similar in other states that Clinton had to have -- in New Jersey she won the Hispanic vote by 35 points, in Massachusetts by 20 points.

"The turnout and the heavy Democratic vote suggest there is something to a ethnic bloc vote in a state like California and probably in a place like Texas," Camarillo told NBC11

According to Time magazine, Obama only got just over half of the Latino vote in Illinois — and lost it by a margin of 2 to 1 in California, suggesting his efforts to sway the demographic have so far failed.