Tim Rutten,  "L.A.'s Latinos are a sign of things to come," Los Angeles Times

Another clearly marked signpost to the future was Latino participation, which has been growing in Los Angeles for decades but which surged to historic levels across the country in this election cycle, according to an unusually comprehensive exit poll conducted by Loyola Marymount University's Leavey Center for the Study of Los Angeles under the direction of Fernando Guerra. No one predicted at the campaign's outset that more than six out of 10 Latino voters would cast their ballots for the first African American president, but they did.

The significance of that landslide was amplified by the fact that Latinos are clustered in the Western states that Obama pried from the red column. Seventy-three percent of Colorado's Latinos went for the Democratic candidate, as did 76% of Nevada's and 69% of New Mexico's. More striking, Latinos helped deliver to Obama two of the three Sunbelt states crucial to Reagan's first realigning victory. In California, 77% of Latinos went for the Democrat (including 90% in some Latino-dense areas such as East L.A.), as did 57% of Florida's.