While Sen. Hillary Clinton is trailing Sen. Barack Obama in the overall delegate count (1,779 to 1,977), Clinton is fighting for every last vote, particularly in places like Puerto Rico where she believes she can capture the Latino vote. Clinton just finished a 3-day campaign in Puerto Rico, which has more than 50 delegates at stake in its June 1 primary. Looking ahead, how might Latinos affect the general election and which candidate has the winning approach?

NewsHour:
“Puerto Rico comes at the end….It is a winner-take-all primary, 63 delegates at stake, a bigger margin for the winner than in California, New York, Illinois. So this thing could be settled by Puerto Rico,” said New York Times columnist David Brooks, on NewsHour, Feb. 6, 2008.

NOW on PBS:
But, while the general sense is that Clinton will win Puerto Rico, it doesn’t look like the primary is going to settle anything for Clinton. The Hispanic vote goes way beyond the presidential primaries. According to the NOW on PBS report “The Latino Vote 2008″ and their series on Election 2008 Burning Questions, Hispanics are the nation’s largest and fastest growing minority group and loom as a potential “swing vote” in the 2008 presidential race because they are strategically located on the electoral college map in several swing states.