After spending the first part of this decade loosening their historic ties to the Democratic Party, Hispanic voters have apparently reversed course in the past year; in a new Pew Hispanic Center survey, some 57% of Latino registered voters now say they are Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party, while just 23% align with the Republican Party — a 34-percentage-point gap in partisan affiliation. In July 2006, the same gap measured just 21 percentage points having shrunk from 33 points in 1999. Read More

Russell Heimlich  is a former web developer at Pew Research Center.