EL PASO, Texas — He's the Hispanic mayor of a Texas Democratic stronghold, but Carlos Ramirez not only supports Republican George W. Bush for president, he even traveled to New Hampshire and California to campaign for him.
He's just the kind of person Bush wants on his side. Democrat Al Gore, too.
Both presidential candidates are vigorously courting local leaders like Ramirez this year, as well as Hispanics in general.
The nation's fastest-growing group of voters, Hispanics are projected to account for 5.4 percent of the electorate this fall. Even more important, four states with large Hispanic populations — Texas, California, New York and Florida — hold 144 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House.
The country's Hispanic vote has gone overwhelmingly to the Democrats in the past two presidential elections. But Bush is running about even with Gore in national polling, and the Texas governor has said repeatedly he won't concede the Hispanic vote this year.
And neither will the GOP. The Republican National Committee plans to spend $7 million to $10 million this year on a media campaign reaching out to Hispanics, including an ad unveiled Wednesday that is being tested in Fresno, Calif., which has a sizable Latino population.
Both Bush and Gore, the Democratic vice president, use Spanish-language ads in targeted areas and switch quickly to Spanish when speaking to Hispanic crowds.
Bush has touted his 1998 Texas re-election as evidence of his appeal. He captured as much as 49 percent of the Hispanic vote in Texas that year, according to some exit polling.
This year, one contest that might be instructive for the fall was California's primary, which included voters of all parties.
Gore won a majority of Hispanics. Bush got about one in five Hispanic votes, poorer than his showing among non-Hispanics. John McCain won nearly as many Hispanics as Bush.