Democrats regard Hispanics as a core element in the party's base. But according to surveys of voters leaving the polling places, Bush raised his share of the Hispanic vote from 35% in 2000 to 44% in 2004. The surveys, known as exit polls, indicated that Hispanics were 8% of the electorate, an increase from 6% in 2000. More than 9 million Hispanics voted, compared with 6 million four years ago.

"Between the campaign results and this (Gonzales') appointment, there's no question that the political visibility of the Latino population has multiplied significantly," says Roberto Suro, director of the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington, D.C.

In elevating a Hispanic to lead the Justice Department, "Republicans are looking around the corner," says Jack Pitney, a professor of government at California's Claremont McKenna College. "In the future, Latinos will make up an increasing share of the vote."

Some political analysts say the exit polls may overstate the Hispanic turnout and the Bush percentage. If 9 million Hispanics voted, "that would be incredible, but it's also hard to believe," says Adam Segal, director of the Hispanic Voter Project at Johns Hopkins University. But down the ballot from the presidency, there's no disputing how well Hispanic candidates did.

The Senate, which hasn't had a Hispanic since the mid-1970s, now will have two: Ken Salazar, a moderate Democrat from Colorado, and Mel Martinez, a conservative Cuban-American from Florida. Officials of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus say there will be 29 Hispanics in the House of Representatives and Senate, up from 25.

"Clearly it was a landmark election," says Harry Pachon, president of the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute at the University of Southern California. "There is the new perception that there is a swing-vote factor in the Latino community, and that it is not a hip-pocket vote for any one party."

A Hispanic in the Cabinet is nothing new. Martinez stepped down as Bush's housing secretary to run for the Senate. Hispanics have run the Energy, Education and Transportation departments in the past. If confirmed by the Senate, Gonzales, a Mexican-American, would be the first Hispanic in the Justice post.

Sergio Bendixen, a Democratic pollster based in Miami, says Hispanics were the deciding factor last week only in New Mexico. A shift in the Hispanic vote swung the state's five electoral votes from Democrat Al Gore in 2000 to Bush this year, Bendixen says. New Mexico's population is 42% Hispanic, and 30% of voters were Hispanic.

The New Democrat Network, an independent group, saw Bush targeting the Hispanic vote more than two years ago. Simon Rosenberg, the group's president, says the "good news for Democrats" is that Republicans made most of their gains among Hispanics in states where there was no contest for these votes.

In exit polling in Florida, where some Cuban-Americans defected from Republican loyalty, Democrats drew 44% of the Hispanic vote, compared with 35% in 2000. In Colorado, 70% of Hispanics voted Democratic this year, up from 67% in 2000. But the Hispanic vote in Nevada dropped from 64% for Gore in 2000 to 60% for John Kerry. Bush won all three states. He also made "substantial gains" among Hispanics in Texas, California and New York, where more than half of Hispanics live, Bendixen says.

GOP ads in Spanish, aimed at blue-collar Hispanic families that might have liked Democrats on economic issues, attacked Kerry's record on social issues. Bush got help from the pulpit.

"The 'X factor' in bringing out the Latino vote was the almost stealth campaign that was conducted by evangelicals and Catholic churches, emphasizing moral values," Pachon says.

Religious faith wasn't the only element helping Bush. "There's no question that there is a growing segment of the Hispanic electorate that's evangelical," Suro says. "But Bush had substantial appeal with native-born, English-speaking, middle-class Latinos."

For the future, "it's impossible to know whether there is a permanent realignment or not," he says. "But it certainly isn't a secure Democratic constituency anymore."