ALBUQUERQUE — In New Mexico, Tomasita Maestas says she will pick the presidential candidate who has the best plan to fix education and the economy.
In Arizona, Mexican immigrant Carlos Gomez backs Republican Mitt Romney because he is more conservative on social issues than his opponent.
In Miami, Colombia native Luna Lopez probably will vote for President Barack Obama now that he has decided to halt the deportation of many illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children.
The reasons that Latinos give for choosing between Obama and Romney are just as diverse as the countries that they or their ancestors once called home, suggesting there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to courting the nation’s fastest-growing minority group.
The Latino vote isn’t monolithic or, really, a voting bloc. It includes a range of people with varying opinions. Among them are Republican-leaning Cubans in Florida, new Mexican immigrants and longtime descendants of Spanish settlers in the Southwest, and Democratic-tilting Puerto Ricans in the East.
Immigration policy would seem to be the natural top issue for these voters, except that nearly two-thirds of Latinos are born in the U.S. Their priorities are the same as the general population — jobs, the economy, education and health care.
“We need to see more jobs here, that’s my No. 1 priority and what I want to hear about,” said Stefan Gonzalez, an almost 18-year-old from Denver whose heritage includes Spanish, Mexican and American Indian roots. Gonzalez, who works in a pawnshop, said he plans to vote for Obama this fall.
Democrats and Republicans are in a fierce race to figure out how to best reach Latinos.
In the short term, these voters could decide the outcome in Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Florida and elsewhere. The long-term stakes are even bigger because Latinos are projected to account for roughly 30 percent of the population by 2050, doubling the size of, and potentially changing, the national political landscape.
Like most minorities, Latinos traditionally have leaned Democratic. But a recent Pew Research poll indicates that Latinos also are the fastest-growing group of independent voters, with 46 percent now shunning a party label compared with 31 percent six years ago. Such results only underscore how diverse Latinos are and the challenges for the political parties.
“It is going to be a very hard fight to win,” said Jennifer Korn, executive director of the Republican-based Hispanic Leadership Network, which was established to help bring more Latino voters to the GOP. “The more they assimilate, the more sophisticated they become, and that’s when they start dividing between parties.”
