Wall Street Journal
By Laura Meckler
October 16, 2014
More
Hispanic Americans are eligible to vote this election than ever before,
but few of them live in states with competitive races, according to a
new report from the
Pew Research Center that details a central problem for advocates who
hope to leverage the power of the fast-growing Hispanic community.
Nearly
half of all Hispanic Americans live in California or Texas, states that
have not staged competitive statewide races in recent years. Texas is
dominated by Republicans;
California, by Democrats.
Another
challenge: turnout rates among Hispanics are historically much lower
than non-Hispanic white and black voters. That’s partly because Latinos
are, as a group, younger
than other voters, and young people are less likely to vote than older
people are.
This
fall, a record 25.2 million Latinos will be eligible to vote, 11% of
all eligible voters nationwide, Pew said. (The report defines an
eligible voter as a U.S. citizen
over 18 years old.) But they represent only 4.7% of eligible voters in
eight states selected by Pew with close Senate races. Colorado, where
Hispanics represent 14.2% of eligible voters, is the only state where
Hispanics represent a greater than average share
of the electorate. (Besides Colorado, the other seven Senate states
tracked by the study are Kansas, Alaska, North Carolina, Arkansas,
Louisiana, Iowa and Kentucky.)
In
states with competitive gubernatorial contests, Hispanics only make an
above-average share of the electorate in Florida (17.1% of eligible
voters) and Colorado (14.2%).
Hispanics
do make up a large share of the electorate in a handful of House
races—particularly a Miami-area seat, where 62% of eligible voters are
Hispanic, and a race
on California’s Gold Coast, where 31% of eligible voters are.
The
power of the Hispanic vote is also limited by low voter participation
rates. In 2010, the last midterm election, just 31.2% of eligible
Hispanics voted, Pew reports,
compared with 48.6% of whites and 44% of blacks.
Over
the course of the congressional debate over immigration, many advocates
for a liberalized system have invoked the electoral power of the
growing Hispanic community.
But they also have acknowledged that Hispanics have much more power in
presidential years, when more states with large Latino populations are
traditionally important to the outcome.
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