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'The Sleeping Giant': Latino Voters
By Zayda Rivera
July 11, 2008
Keywords: Latino, census, Hispanic, vote, voting, elections, battleground state, candidates, election 2008, first black president
The Latino vote is a force to be reckoned with, even during nonpresidential elections, according to a recent report by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Out of the 17 million Latinos living in this country who are eligible to vote, as many as 5.6 million showed up to the polls in 2006, up 18 percent from 2002. Meanwhile, voter turnout for whites that year was up only 7 percent from 2002; for Blacks, it was 5 percent. What's surprising about these figures is that, typically, voter turnout is lower for congressional elections. So why did the Latinos hit the polls in such big numbers?
"As with all groups, voter turnout is a function of how interesting the election is," says Mark Lopez, associate director of the Pew Hispanic Center. "Whether someone lives in a battleground state and whether efforts are made to 'get out the vote' [are also factors]."
And the Latino voting bloc is only getting bigger. Latinos currently make up 15 percent of the U.S. population. By 2050, they will make up almost a quarter of the population, according to projections by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Immigration is one issue that has energized Latino voters. Both Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain support a guest-worker program and a path to citizenship, although Obama has recently accused McCain of backing off comprehensive immigration reform. As the candidates step up their courting of the Latino vote, they are starting to emphasize other issues important to Latinos, especially those in the swing states of Florida, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico.
This week, both candidates pitched their plans to rescue the economy during the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) convention in Washington, D.C. The Latino vote could very well be the tipping factor come November, since many of these voters live in states that will be hotly contested in this presidential election.
"When you look at the battleground states, at least four of them are very heavily Hispanic," said Simon Rosenberg, head of a think-tank called NDN, formerly the New Democrat Network, to The Associated Press (AP). "We will see more [campaign] media heaped on Hispanic voters than at any time in American history."
And Latino-voter turnout is expected to be higher for the presidential election. "In 2004's [presidential election], Latino-voter participation rates were much higher than in 2006," says Lopez.
"For years they called the Latinos the sleeping giant. Well, they woke us up," said Luis Vera, general counsel for LULAC, to the AP.
"Just looking at the demographics, whichever party ends up winning the Latino vote will be the majority party in the 21st century," says Rosenberg.
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