More than two-thirds of US Latino voters cast ballots for Democrat challenger John Kerry, who lost his bid for presidency, according to a national survey released Wednesday by a think tank.
Some 67.7 percent of the Latino vote went to the Kerry, compared with 31.4 percent for President Bush, who won reelection in an extremely close race, according to the William C. Velasquez Institute, a nonpartisan, non-profit Latino-oriented research and policy think tank.
"Nationally, Latinos continued their historic voting patterns, siding with the Democratic challenger over the president by familiar margins, a little more than 2-to-1," said Antonio Gonzalez, president of the William C. Velasquez Institute.
"President Bush tried unsuccessfully to increase his support among Latinos," he said. "The Democrats' message appears to have resonated with Latinos."
In the 2000 presidential election, then-Vice President Al Gore got between 62 percent and 68 percent support among Latinos, according to the institute, which cited three different national exit surveys.
Bush received between 29 percent and 37 percent of the Latino support in the 2000 race.