Courting the Hispanic Vote

This election season, candidates are walking the fine line between public anger over illegal immigration and the growing clout of the country's largest minority group. At the same time politicians are talking more about tougher border control and cracking down on immigration violations, they're also ramping up efforts to connect with Hispanic voters.

And they're doing so even in Iowa, where the Latino population remains tiny but is growing rapidly.

Spanish advertising and outreach has been a big part of past presidential campaigns, as candidates tried to connect to the country's Hispanics, who now number about 47 million. Before the 2008 campaign, most of these efforts came out only during the general-election campaign, and they often included little more than ads dubbed into Spanish, or a small, translated section of a candidate's Web site.

Now, the outreach has begun earlier than ever, especially in the campaign for the hotly contested Jan. 3 Iowa caucus, where a few thousand votes can make the difference between victory and defeat.

There are about 115,000 Hispanics in Iowa, a nearly 30% increase from the 2000 total and almost 4% of the state's total population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. An estimated 37,000 Hispanics in Iowa are registered to vote, according to campaign organizers.