Hispanic delegate hoping to get his brethren to vote McCain

ST. PAUL, Minn. – This November, voter turnout will be critical in who gets elected. In Colorado, the Hispanic vote is a key to victory.

Joe Nunez is hoping to get Hispanics to vote for Sen. John McCain on Nov. 4.

He has attended every Republican National Convention since 1984.

Nunez and his wife Lilly are both delegates, and both are hoping to bring out the vote for the GOP.

They are fighting an uphill battle.

A Pew Hispanic Center poll shows that 57 percent of Latino voters are Democrats or say they lean toward the Democratic Party, with only 23 percent registered as Republican.

Joe and Lilly Nunez are minorities even in their own minority.

"There are so many different blocks, if you will, of voters and of course because of the numbers, in Colorado the Hispanic vote is very important. And we're working hard to try and bring the Hispanic vote over to McCain," said Joe Nunez.

Some political analysts say the Democratic Party's popularity among Hispanic voters in the early campaign was due to Sen. Hillary Clinton's appeal as a primary candidate.

Given the choice between Sen. Barack Obama and McCain, some feel McCain's record on immigration may prove more beneficial to Hispanics. He pushed hard for a failed immigration proposal last year that was largely unpopular because it advocated a path to citizenship for working immigrants. However, he later said he had changed his stance and wouldn't have voted for that proposal.

"The thing that worries me about the opposition, and we saw a lot of it in Denver, is the continuance of so much pessimism, negativism and gloom and doom, and I don't see our ticket presenting that. It's more positive. We have more of a 'can do' attitude and we will get it done," said Nunez.

Colorado's Hispanic voting population is the sixth largest in the U.S. and the fastest-growing minority voting block. About 12 percent of eligible voters in Colorado are Latinos. Most of them are young, ranging in age from 18 to 29.