The Democratic Party suffered major losses in the Midterm Elections of 2010, but it could have been far worse had it not been for solid Latino support in many states!
A couple of seats in the House of Representatives were saved because of Latino votes in Arizona, and the Senate seats of Harry Reid in Nevada, Michael Bennet in Colorado, and Barbara Boxer in California were retained due significantly to the Latino vote in those states for the Democrats!
Additionally, the Latino vote also helped Governor Pat Quinn to win in Illinois, and Jerry Brown to win the Governorship of California!
The only place that the Latino vote seemed to help Republicans was in Florida, where Marco Rubio won the Senate seat, but the difference is that Latinos in Florida are more heavily Cuban American, a voting bloc which tends to be strongly Republican. With Marco Rubio himself being a Cuban American, and replacing an elected Cuban American, Mel Martinez, who held the seat until he resigned in 2009, Florida is therefore a special case!
It is clear that the Latino vote can have a dramatic effect on the fortunes of the Democratic Party in the 2012 elections, and be a decisive factor in the re-election campaign of President Barack Obama!