Hispanic Population Growth Could Realign South's Politics

Miami Herald reported that: Huge surges among Hispanic populations in the Deep South could mean a political sea change over the next two decades, as immigrants become naturalized and they and their American-born children register to vote, political and demographics experts say. The states with some of the largest percentages in Hispanic population growth make up a large swath of the Southeast: Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee, according to an analysis of the most recent census figures by the Pew Hispanic Center. In all those Republican-dominated states, the percentage of Hispanics nearly doubled. In Georgia, that population grew by 96 percent over the past decade, according to the Pew study. Only 23 percent of Georgia's Latino population is eligible to vote, compared with 42 percent nationwide, figures that reflect the state's high numbers of young Hispanics and new immigrants, said Mark Hugo Lopez, the associate director of the Pew Hispanic Center. However, in Georgia, as in many parts of the country, "there are a number of campaigns to continue to focus on people who are here legally to become citizens," Lopez said. "There continue to be efforts to get them naturalized and registered to vote."