Google Searches for Voter Registration Have Surged in Hispanic Areas

New York Times

By Nate Cohn

September 29, 2016 

Google Searches for Voter Registration Have Surged in Hispanic Areas

 In the real world, demographic change is gradual: Every day, the country becomes a tad more diverse as babies are born, people immigrate, and others die.

 

But in elections, demographic change happens fast: in a surge of new voter registrations ahead of a presidential election. Just who registers and how many will be one of the biggest stories of the next month.

 

This wave has probably just begun, even if it isn’t yet reflected in the available voter registration data. For now, we’re left to read tea leaves — and they look good for Democrats.

 

Google trends data indicates that the searches for voter registration have surged over the last week — and that the highest rates of searches have been in disproportionately Hispanic areas.

 

By Wednesday evening, all of the top markets for searches for “register to vote” came in heavily Latino markets in Texas, California, Nevada, Arizona and Florida. The same pattern held into Thursday.

 

Many of these markets — like those along the Rio Grande in South Texas or in California’s Central Valley — have typically had the lowest turnout and registration rates in the country.

 

It’s a big reversal from last month, when registration searches were highest in the predominantly white, Northern states that typically have the highest registration and turnout.

 

Whether this trend will last may hinge on what caused it in the first place. Hillary Clinton’s campaign plainly hopes to motivate Latino registration with the story of Alicia Machado, who was harshly criticized by Donald J. Trump as Miss Universe 1996 and again after the presidential debate this week. But if that is the main cause, the surge of Hispanic interest in voter registration compared with other Americans could fade along with the story.

 

And even if it does hold, the Google Trends data doesn’t prove that there will be a big surge in Hispanic registration. We’ll have to wait a few weeks for updated voter registration data.

 

But this year, newly registered voters have tended to be more Hispanic than in past years. According to data from Catalist, a Democratic firm, about 12 percent of newly registered voters were estimated to be Hispanic, versus 10 percent by the same point in 2012.

 

In Florida, the Hispanic share of registered voters has already risen to 15.3 percent on Aug. 1 from 13.9 percent at the time of the 2012 presidential election.

 

In 2012, the Hispanic share of registered voters increased to 13.9 percent from 13.5 between the August primary and the general election. A similar uptick would be bad news for Republicans; a bigger one would start to make Mr. Trump’s path to victory in Florida look very tenuous.

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