President Obama is poised to make a bit of history when he visits this Tehachapi Mountain hamlet Monday to dedicate the Cesar E. Chavez National Monument, the nation's first such site to honor a contemporary Mexican American. He'll also be sending a message.

By stopping at an out-of-the-way corner of a state already safely in his column — less than a month before the Nov. 6 election — Obama is reaching out to Latino voters, underscoring their growing importance in presidential politics.

Most polls show Obama expected to get about 70% of the Latino vote, and some of the country's fastest-growing Latino communities are in hotly contested battleground states like North Carolina, Nevada, Virginia and Florida. But Latinos also lag behind whites and blacks in voter turnout, a shadow over Democrats' hopes if the election hangs on razor-thin margins.

Read more at the LA Times