Presidential hopefuls Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., addressed Hispanic voters in Washington Tuesday as both campaigns sought to appeal to the nation’s fastest-growing minority voting bloc.

The candidates separately addressed the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC, an advocate group for the 46 million Latino voters in America. McCain, a longtime proponent of immigration reform, spoke about creating more jobs and increasing affordable health care.

“Small businesses are the job engine of America,” he said. “Taking more money from them deprives them of the capital they need. If you believe that you should pay more taxes, I’m the wrong candidate for you.”

Obama took the opportunity at LULAC to speak about his personal record on Hispanic and civil rights advocacy. The Illinois senator emphasized his time spent as a community organizer and civil rights attorney in Chicago “to register Latino voters and ensure that Hispanics had an equal voice in City Hall,” according to remarks prepared for delivery and released by his campaign.

Obama also planned to tout the need to increase job opportunities, saying Hispanic families “need us to restore fairness to our economy by putting a tax cut into the pockets of workers and small business owners; by ending tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas and giving them to companies that create good jobs here at home.”

In December, a Pew Hispanic Center poll showed some 57 percent of registered Latino voters are Democrats or say they lean toward the Democratic Party as opposed to the 23 percent that align themselves with Republicans, CBS News reported.

The Democratic Party’s popularity with Hispanic voters in December, however, may have been due heavily to Sen. Hillary Clinton’s appeal as a primary candidate. Given the choice between McCain and Obama, some feel that McCain’s long record on immigration may prove more beneficial to Hispanics, according to the CBS News analysis.

McCain has made immigration reform a key part of his political career, and he pushed hard for a failed immigration proposal last year that was largely unpopular with conservative Republicans because it advocated a path to citizenship for working immigrants.

McCain has also begun running ads targeted at Cuban-Americans in Florida and has spoken out on Latino issues for many years.

Alma Morales Riojas, the president of the Latina women’s organization MANA, said McCain’s work may appeal more to Hispanic voters.

“They’ve seen McCain coming from Arizona, work with the Latino community,” she said, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Company. “I don’t know that we’ve seen Senator Obama work with the Hispanic community, and frankly, I don’t think we’ve seen him speak on immigration reform.”

Obama, speaking after McCain, mentioned his opponent’s work on immigration reform but accused him of flip-flopping on the issue to appease the Republican base.

“When he was running for his party’s nomination, he abandoned his courageous stance, and said that he wouldn’t even support his own legislation if it came up for a vote,” Obama said.

The candidates also appeared to put a tight focus on the economy pitching competing economic plans as part of their appeals to the Hispanic organization.