Big Jump in Latino Registration for Democrats Unlikely to Turn Arizona Blue

According to USA Today: The number of Latinos registering to vote as Democrats in Arizona has jumped from 100 a week to 500 in the seven weeks since a tough new immigration law was adopted, The Arizona Republic reports. The newspaper says many of those registering are young Latino citizens whose parents may be undocumented. But, the newspaper says, the electoral impact may not be as great as in California after passage of a GOP-sponsored ballot initiative in 1994 to clamp down on illegal immigration by prohibiting undocumented people from receiving health care, public education and other services. But such a shift is less likely in Arizona, the newspaper notes, because the Latino vote is lower than in California and there are also fewer non-Hispanics with whom to ally to overturn the state's traditional conservative voting pattern. Arizona also does not have the large unions to help organize the Latino vote as in California, The Republic says.