Poll reveals LatAm views on U.S. election

A recent poll by Chile-based Latinobarometro revealed several interesting findings that Latin Americans have on the U.S. presidential election. This AP article on the poll chose to emphasize how “two in three Latin Americans either don't care who wins… or don't think the outcome will matter.” Yet there are other interesting findings in the survey:

• Latinobarometro's director finds it “very interesting” that only 41% of Venezuelans had knowledge of the election despite Hugo Chavez’ “trying to demonize the U.S. government.” Yet eight other countries had lower percentages than Venezuela including states with populist leaders similar to Chavez (Bolivia, Ecuador) or moderate leaders (Panama, Peru, Honduras).
• The group with most knowledge of the election is youth aged 18 to 25, while support of the candidates based on wealth differs from country to country.
• Pluralities in all of the eighteen surveyed countries prefer Barack Obama over John McCain. McCain’s support came highest in countries with rightist leaders (Colombia, El Salvador) while Obama received at least 40% backing in four states (Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Brazil, Uruguay).
• On average, roughly 22% of responders believed that the next president would pay more attention to Latin America as the Bush administration has done.
  

Image- tve.org
Sources- Latinobarometro, AP