USA: The Latino Vote Matters,But It Does Not Define the Presidential Election

The Hispanic community with the right to vote corresponds to 8.9% who are registered to vote.

The growing population of Hispanics in the United States has led many all over the country to believe that the Latino vote will take shape as one of the factors that will decide the next President of the United States.

However, the numbers of Hispanics who can actually vote in the United States equal 8.9% of the total population, which demonstrates a high rate of voter apathy. For example, in the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election, only 18% of the registered voters of Hispanic origin voted.

Such rates of participation seem to indicate that although the Latino vote is important, it doesn’t have enough political weight to influence the results of the United States presidential race.

The Democratic primaries illustrate this fact. As never before, the Latino electorate flocked to the polls to vote for Hillary Clinton and won her eight states with the greatest presence of Hispanics; despite all of this, however, the former first lady did not succeed in becoming a presidential candidate.

The Latino influence

Although 43 million Hispanics make up the community, the first racial or ethnic minority with the greatest population in the United States (they represent 15.5% of the total population), and with figures placing them even above the African-American population, potential Latino voters are reduced to only 8.9% of the U.S. electorate, which equals 9.2 million people or possible voters.

According to reports from the Pew Hispanic Center (PEW), a research institution specialized in this sector of the population, the difference between the total numbers of Hispanics in the United States with those that are registered is explained by the fact that the majority are immigrants that arrived without documentation, lacking citizenship, are either not of the age to vote, or have not signed up in the electoral register.

Coupled with the lack of political rights of the majority of Hispanics in the United States, what most seems to curb the influence of Latinos in elections is voter apathy. In 2004, the population of Hispanic origin that could vote in the presidential elections was equal to 7% of the registered population. However, only 1.8% exercised this right. That is to say, 82% of registered Hispanics did not vote. In contrast, 51% of the white population went out to the polls and in the Black community 39% participated, according to a study from PEW.

More Hispanics, more votes?

For the 2008 elections, the Hispanic electorate recorded a 1.9% increase compared to 2004, and went from representing 7% of the total registered voters to 8.9 percent, which in terms of potential voters equals approximately an additional two million people.

Analysts of PEW explain that this increase is due to the fact that a considerable part of the Latino population, predominately younger Latinos, reached the age to vote and signed up in the electoral register.

Such an increase is a reflection of a growing participation of Latinos at the polls in the primaries this year. Comparing exit polls taken by PEW, in 16 states the Hispanic vote was greater, and in some cases up to three times greater, than in the primaries of four years ago.

Hillary Clinton’s nomination as a Democratic candidate mobilized the Hispanic community. The wife of former President Bill Clinton counted primarily on her Latina campaign coordinator, Patti Solís Doyle, who formulated a strategy to capture this sector before being dismissed by the triple defeat that Hillary Clinton suffered in Louisiana, Washington, and Nebraska.

According to an Edison/Mitofsky poll during the Democratic caucuses and primaries of 19 states, for every three Latino votes, two favored Hillary and one favored Barack Obama.

With the boost of the Hispanic vote, the former first lady won the Democratic primaries in the states of California, Texas, New York, Florida, Arizona, New Jersey, New Mexico and Massachusetts, where the largest population of Latinos in the United States are concentrated (around 70 percent), but was unable to win the Democratic candidacy, which was won by Obama, who became the first Black candidate in the world power.

In the same way, the relevance of the Latino vote seems to be limited by factors like the rules of the U.S. electoral system where even the candidate with the highest popular vote does not necessarily win the presidency (they vote for delegates who in turn elect the leader), and in which the population of whites and the participation of Blacks in the polls are greater, which gives them more electoral weight.

Although the vote of the Hispanic community will not end up deciding the electoral battle, in no way does that mean that it is unimportant. Both the Republican candidate John McCain and his Democratic adversary allocate part of their campaign efforts to win that vote.

McCain, recently visiting Mexico, went to one of the most iconic places of the Hispanic culture, the Villa de Guadalupe. But when questioned about immigration reforms, he responded that first he would have to reinforce the security on the U.S. border.

For his part, Obama, who the polls indicate as the favorite among Latinos, added the ex-coordinator of the Hillary Clinton campaign, Hispanic Patti Solís, to his team, and recently announced that he will invest $20 million to the strategy to make sure the Hispanic community goes to the polls on November 4th to vote for the Democrats. His principal offer for Latinos: a migratory reform in the first year of office if he wins the presidency.