For all of the copious amounts of discussion regarding the "white working class" voters or the "Reagan Democrats" in the media, you would think they constituted 80% of general election ballot-casters. However, as it turns out, with the rapid growth of the Latino community in this country, that particular voting block will be of extreme significance in the next election.
And fortunately, Barack Obama starts out with a huge advantage in this group.
*UPDATE* I just added a whole bunch of analysis regarding turnout patters, percentage of voting age Latinos who are ineligible, etc.
According to a news article from today's Los Angeles Times about the latest Gallup figures, Obama holds a commanding lead over McCain with Latinos.
A new Gallup Poll summary of surveys taken in May shows Obama winning 62% of Latino registered voters nationwide, compared with just 29% for McCain. Others have found a wide gap as well. The pro-Democratic group Democracy Corps compiled surveys from March through May that showed Obama with a 19-point lead among Latinos. And a Times poll published last month showed Obama leading McCain among California Latinos by 14 points.
In 2000, according to the national exit poll for the general election, Latinos made up just 7% of voters. The breakdown was as follows:
White 81%
Black 10%
Latino 7%
Asian 2%
Other 1%
In 2004, according to the national exit poll for the general election, Latinos made up 8% of voters. The breakdown was as follows:
White 77%
Black 11%
Latino 8%
Asian 2%
Other 2%
According to the current Political Dashboard available on yahoo.com, the current voter breakdown as of 2008 is as follows:
White 66%
Black 12%
Latino 15%
Asian 4%
Other 3%
As we can see, if every ethnic group were to vote in proportion to its percentage of the electorate, the Latino voting group would roughly double in strength from 2004 to 2008.
According to statistics available on Factfinder.census.gov, the fifteen states with the highest percentage of Hispanic or Latino residents are as follows:
- New Mexico - 44.0%
- California - 35.9%
- Texas - 35.7%
- Arizona - 29.2%
- Nevada - 24.4%
- Florida - 20.1%
- Colorado - 19.7%
- New York - 16.3%
- New Jersey - 15.6%
- Illinois - 14.7%
- Utah - 11.2%
- Connecticut - 11.2%
- Rhode Island 11.0%
- Oregon 10.2%
- Idaho 9.5%
Interestingly, the two states in this grouping with the sharpest increase percentage-wise in Latino or Hispanic residents from 2000 to 2006 were Oregon (27.5% increase) and Rhode Island (26.4% increase). Of the top 10 states in overall population, North Carolina saw the sharpest acceleration of Hispanic or Latino residents - from 4.7% in 2000 to 6.7% in 2006, representing a 42.6% increase over that six year period.
And as we can see, six out of the top seven states for percentage of Latino residents are in the western United States.
As far as political alignment goes within the Latino community, wikipedia has posted an excellent article. Here is an excerpt:
Hispanics differ on their political views depending on where they are located and their background, but the majority identify themselves as Democrats, support the Democrats (57%) and/or vote for the Democratic Party in some percentage such as in California, Texas and during the presidential elections of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush among others. 23% of Hispanics identify themselves as Republicans with 34% Independent or undecided as of 2007, the largest in years. Many Cubans and Colombians tend to favor conservative political ideologies and support the Republicans, while Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Dominicans tend to favor liberal views and support the Democrats; however, because the latter groups are far more numerous (Mexicans alone are nearly 60% of Hispanics), the Democratic Party is considered to be in a far stronger position among Hispanics overall in the longer run.
And in the 2006, the Hispanic community voted decisively for the Democrats:
In the 2006 midterm election, however, due to the unpopularity of the Iraq War, the heated debate concerning illegal immigration, and Republican-related Congressional scandals, Latinos went as strongly Democratic as they have since the Clinton years. Exit poll showed Latinos voting for Democrats by a lopsided 69-30 margin, with Florida Latinos for the first time split evenly.
It has been mentioned that a significant portion of the Latino community is ineligible to vote. As it stands currently, according to a recent online article on America.gov, 25% of Latinos are ineligible to vote due to lack of citizenship. However, there is a large effort at mobilizing the huge group of Latino youth citizens in the U.S. to vote.
The U.S. cable television station Mun2, which is aimed at young Hispanics, is teaming up with the Telemundo television network in the "Vota Por Tu Futuro / Vote 4 UR Future" campaign to encourage youth voter mobilization in 2008. Although the Hispanic Second Generation is a very young group, Fry said, it constitutes a very significant portion of the community, and people analyzing Hispanic voting trends will be watching it.
Another factor affecting Hispanics' political clout is that about 25 percent are ineligible to vote because they are not U.S. citizens. Although organizations such as the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) and the Spanish-language Univision television network actively promote citizenship drives, the naturalization process is not quick.
One slightly troubling pattern in the Latino community is a low turnout in elections.
The third factor is the lack of participation in elections by many Hispanics who are U.S. citizens, according to Fry. In 2006, for example, only 5.6 million of the 17.3 million eligible Hispanic voters participated.
http://www.america.gov/...
If there were a massive GOTV effort in Hispanic areas of the country, this should help with turnout. With the massive amounts of Latino citizens who have just reached voting age, the increase in naturalization for Latino immigrants over the past few years, and with the Democrats winning over the Latino community in general, the Hispanic community could make up anywhere from 10% to 15% of the voting electorate this Fall.
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Just for a reference point, here is a map which indicates where the highest percentage of the Hispanic and/or Latino community is located in the U.S.
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Fortunately for us, the Obama campaign seems to have a clear strategy for courting Latino voters:
Obama is "doing better than anyone imagined at this point," said Simon Rosenberg, head of the pro-Democratic group NDN, which specializes in Latino outreach. "But he does have room to grow."
The Obama campaign recently hired a press spokesman to work full time on Spanish-language media.
Helping with the planning is U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles), New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Federico Pena, a former secretary of both Energy and Transportation under Bill Clinton.
Also, on Thursday, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who was a point person for Clinton on Latino outreach, said he would campaign vigorously for Obama, and called him "inspiring."
If Obama can retain a 20 point-plus lead over McCain in this group in the general election, it would give him an enormous chance of winning.
Significantly, even if Obama just gets the same percentages of the vote in each ethnic group as Kerry did in 2004, and each group votes proportionally to its percentage of the electorate, we wind up with the following:
Obama McCain
White 66% 41 58
Black 12% 88 11
Latino 15% 53 44
Asian 3% 56 44
Other 4% 54 40
Which yields: Obama 49.41% McCain 49.12%
Having said that, my prediction is that the voting in each group will go as follows:
Obama McCain Barr/Other
White 68% 43% 53% 4%
Black 13% 92% 7% 1%
Latino 13% 59% 39% 2%
Asian 3% 58% 41% 1%
Other 3% 60% 36% 4%
Which yields: Obama 52.41% McCain 44.33% Barr/Other 3.24%
Just don't forget, you heard it here first!
And one final very significant tidbit from the article I will leave you with:
The Gallup survey of Latinos found that Obama, despite his string of losses to Clinton, performed just as well as Clinton in a theoretical matchup against McCain.
*update* In a totally unrelated matter, I wanted to point out that in Oregon they are STILL counting votes from the primary. The good news: our primary this year CRUSHED the previous record for turnout which was held by the 1968 Democratic primary there. The previous record was 72%, this year it's 75%! Isn't that awesome?
Link: https://secure.sos.state.or.us/...