ABSTRACT
The experiences of the 1992 presidential race refined the understanding of the role that Latinos can play in state and national elections. The 1988 study documented that Latinos were more influential in the primaries and in the period around the party conventions than in the general election. Latino voters did not play a decisive role in the Democratic party primaries in 1992. Latino voters were also marginal to the outcome of the Republican primaries. The Bill Clinton campaign showed that, contrary to the expectation, explicit outreach to Latinos may not be an absolute requirement for Latinos to play an important role. The George Bush campaign demonstrated the complexity of developing rules for Latino political significance. The long-term Republican strategy of outreach to Latinos continued amidst the confusion in the president's campaign and offered the potential to offset some of the core Republican votes that would be lost to Clinton and Ross Perot.
