News Release

With Republicans and Democrats vying for the Hispanic vote in 2004, the author of groundbreaking research on Hispanic voters and the ways candidates, parties and interest groups communicate with them is available for interview to discuss the upcoming Democratic presidential primaries and the general election battle for the Hispanic vote.

Adam J. Segal, director of the Hispanic Voter Project at Johns Hopkins University, is available for interview from Washington, DC. His new report, "Hispanic Tuesday: The Hispanic Vote and the 2004 Democratic Primaries" (June/July 2003), looks ahead to 2004 and the important role Hispanic voters will play in the presidential primaries. "Hispanic voters will play a historic new role in the early Democratic presidential primaries next year," Segal writes.

"For the first time, two states with large, growing Hispanic populations, New Mexico (Hispanics are 42.1 percent of the population) and Arizona (25.3 percent), will hold primaries or caucuses on the same date in the first multi-state round of Democratic presidential contests, February 3, 2004" -- Hispanic Tuesday."

Segal established the Hispanic Voter Project at Johns Hopkins' Washington Center for the Study of American Government in 2002 ( www.jhu.edu/advanced/government/hvp). His work on how presidential candidates tried to reach Hispanic voters in 2000 and the record amount that political campaigns spent in 2002 received national media attention, including stories on CNN, in the New York Times and Miami Herald, on the Associated Press wire and elsewhere.

Segal earned his master of arts in government from The Johns Hopkins University and his bachelor of arts in political science and Judaic studies from The George Washington University.

Segal can be reached during the day at (202) 265-3000 or on his cell phone at (202) 422-4673.