OBAMA'S SECRET WEAPON FOR 2012: ARIZONA?

A new Pew poll says that President Obama is looking good against an unnamed Republican opponent in 2012:

Nearly half (47%) of registered voters say they would like to see Barack Obama reelected, while 37% say they would prefer to see a Republican candidate win the 2012 election, according to the survey....

Dave Weigel says (correctly) that that's because of solid support for Obama from non-white voters:

Look down at the Pew internals, though. Ninety-two percent of black voters want to re-elect Obama, as do 66 percent of Hispanics. Only one percent of blacks (!) and 16 percent of Hispanics want to vote against Obama. That's the source of the positive re-elect number -- break it down to white voters, and only 36 percent of them want to re-elect him.

Of course, Obama didn't win among white voters in 2008 (it's been a long time since any Democratic presidential candidate did). Actually, he's doing about as well among whites as he did in 2008 -- in fact, he's just about exactly where he was in '08 with whites and blacks.

With Hispanics, it's another story.

Here are the '08 exit poll numbers from CNN. (Don't worry -- I'll explain where all this is going below.)

Now, here are the new Pew numbers:

Let's assume that the undecideds in the new Pew poll will distribute themselves the way the decided respondents do -- in other words, let's find out what percentage of decided black, white, and Hispanic voters support or oppose Obama. Then let's compare those numbers to the '08 exit poll numbers:

White:
'08: Obama 43%, McCain 55%
'12: Obama 43%, GOP 57%

Black:
'08: Obama 95%, McCain 4%
'12: Obama 99%, GOP 1%

Hispanic:
'08: Obama 67%, McCain 31%
'12: Obama 80%, GOP 20%

That last one is a huge leap.

Thanks for signing that immigration bill, Governor Brewer.