HispanicBusiness

Shifts in white and ethnic votes could determine who wins the U.S. presidential election, a review of polling data indicated.

President Obama must limit his losses among whites and push for a strong turnout among minorities while Republican challenger Mitt Romney needs to cut his deficit among Hispanic voters, hope that black vote doesn't match or exceed 2008 levels and push hard for a white turnout high enough to win, The Hill reported Friday.

A recent Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll indicated Romney led Obama among white voters, 57 to 39 percent.

Exit polls from 2008 indicated Obama lost the white vote to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., by a 55-to-43-percent margin but won black voters 95 percent to 4 percent and Hispanic voters 67 percent to 31 percent.

Neil Newhouse, Romney's lead pollster, said data indicated "a lack of intensity for Obama" and the notion that this year's electorate would duplicate 2008 was "just really a stretch."

Obama's campaign manager, Jim Messina, said the opposition was trying to assert that "our coalition of women, Latinos, African-Americans and young voters isn't going to show up to vote. That's not so much a prediction on Romney's part as it is wishful thinking."