California's swing votersSAN FRANCISCO—Barack Obama-mania may have swept through other states, but Hillary Clinton's powerful coalition of women and Latinos in California was strong and shows few signs of fracturing.
"It's become a real firewall for her," says Jaime Regalado, executive director of the Edmund "Pat" Brown Institute at Cal State University-Los Angeles. "I don't think anyone expected that."
Nearly 60 percent of women here voted for Clinton, as did more than two thirds of Latinos, whose turnout made up 29 percent of the vote. Older voters, too, stuck by her. More than 1 in 4 voters were 60 or older, and Clinton won 55 percent of their vote. She earned the trust of middle-class voters as well: Sixty percent of those earning $50,000 or less a year supported her.
http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/campaign-2008/2008/02/08/latinos-women-boost-clinton-to-victory.html