New York Times
By Julia Preston
February 23, 2016
The
number of Latino voters has been steadily rising in presidential
elections, and now the Naleo Educational Fund, a national bipartisan
Latino group, has estimated that
at least 13.1 million Latinos will vote in November, a 17 percent
increase over their turnout in 2012. That would increase their
composition of the country’s electorate to 9 percent.
According
to new state estimates by the group (the acronym stands for National
Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials), Latino voters
will increase 7 percent
in Colorado, 23 percent in Nevada and 10 percent in Texas — where
Latinos are nearly one in four registered voters, or 23 percent.
The
figures are low estimates, based on projections from Latino voting in
the last four presidential elections, the group said. The rapid growth
comes mainly from Latino-Americans
reaching voting age in a population tilted to young people, and from
legal immigrants becoming citizens. But in past cycles Latinos lagged
behind other voter groups in registration rates and turnout. Naleo’s
estimates do not project possible effect of registration
drives or campaigns, like the one that Univision is undertaking.
“We
are only going up, but the question is how far,” said Arturo Vargas,
executive director of Naleo. “We still have a performance gap.”
The
Democratic contenders, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, are already
vying for Hispanic-American votes that could be critical in several
primaries and help to sway
swing states in November. In the Democratic caucuses in Nevada last
weekend, poll and precinct results left unclear which candidate won
Latinos, after both competed hard for those voters. But on March 1, Mrs.
Clinton could get a boost from Latinos in Texas,
where the Clinton name attracts party loyalty among embattled Democrats
in a state in which Republicans dominate.
Even
though two Cuban-American Latinos are among those fighting for the
Republican nomination – Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Senator Marco
Rubio of Florida – until Tuesday’s
caucuses in Nevada Republicans have not been on terrain where they
needed to court Latinos. In Nevada, they are not the big prize: Only 17
percent of registered Latinos are Republicans, according to Naleo, while
55 percent are Democrats. But going in to Texas
on March 1, Latinos could give extra help to Mr. Cruz on his home turf
in his battle with Donald J. Trump. Mr. Cruz has taken a hard line on
immigration, an emotional issue for Latinos, but not as hard as Mr.
Trump, who wants to build a wall along the southwest
border to keep Mexicans out.
Democrats
are increasingly confident Latinos will back them strongly in November,
but the question for them is by how much. In 2012, 71 percent of
Latinos voted for President
Obama while 27 percent went for Mitt Romney.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
No comments:
Post a Comment