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President Barack Obama is hoping his visit to Puerto Rico
will shore up the Hispanic vote for Democrats, but more
importantly for his 2012 re-election bid.
The media choir has been
singing a similar tune, especially since the U.S. Census
Bureau recently released a new report, “The Hispanic
Population: 2010,†which documents the
disproportionately large growth in the Hispanic
population.
According to the 2010 Census, there were 308.7 million
people residing in the U.S. on April 1, 2010, of which
50.5 million (16 percent) were of Hispanic or Latino
origin.
In addition, the Bureau
asserted, “More than half of the growth in the total
population of the United States between 2000 and 2010 was
due to the increase in the Hispanic population.†Since
Hispanics tend to vote Democratic—67 percent for Obama
in 2008, according to a post-election poll cited in the New York Times—the Obama
campaign thinks that growth could swing important states
to the president.
That thinking is as wishful, and deluded, as the happy
talk that surrounded the president’s economic policies
and “shovel-ready†stimulus efforts that were going to
get the country working again. Here’s why.
People ≠Voters — That New York
Times story pointed out that only 10 million Latinos voted
in the 2008 election, 9 percent of all voters, and that
was a record high. Why so low? For one thing, the
Hispanic population is younger than the general
population: 27.4 years was the median age for Hispanics in
2009, vs. 36.8 years for the U.S. Younger ages are less
likely to vote, and a disproportionately large percentage
of Hispanics aren’t even of voting age.
Another important point: No one knows how many of those
50 million Hispanics are citizens eligible to vote. The
Census counts people in the U.S., not citizens.
Someone from the Bureau told me that interviewers do not
ask about citizenship nor do they record citizenship
status. There has been a groundswell of Hispanics
entering the U.S. over the last decade, some legally but
many not, which has led to a huge national debate over
immigration. How many of the 15.2 million more Hispanics
(between 2000 and 2010) are eligible to vote? We simply
don’t know from Census surveys, but it’s reasonable to
think that many, and perhaps most, can’t—at least not
legally.
The Electoral College Decides — The
Electoral College, not the popular vote, decides who will
be president. If none of those 50 million new Hispanics
lived in California, President Obama would likely get all
of the state’s 55 electoral votes; if all of them lived
in California—and the largest number do—and they all
vote for Obama he would still get … 55 electoral votes.
So the question for presidential election purposes is as
much about where those votes are as how many there are.
The Census Bureau says 75 percent of the Hispanic
population is located in eight states: California, Texas,
Florida, New York, Illinois, Arizona, New Jersey and
Colorado. Of those states, California, New York, Illinois
and New Jersey will very likely remain blue in the next
presidential election, while Texas and Arizona will almost
certainly remain red. Colorado, which has been trending
blue, and Florida, which leans red but not by much, could
be swayed.
Of the nine states where the Hispanic population more
than doubled—Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Maryland,
Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and
South Dakota—eight are in the south and all but one,
Maryland, either lean or are strongly red.
The point is that a burgeoning Hispanic population may
lead to a major shift in voting patterns at some point in
the future, but not 2012. That said, there are some
important swing states—e.g., Florida, Pennsylvania,
North Carolina and Colorado—that could be affected by
Hispanic votes next year.
Hispanics Are Diverse — The Census
Bureau struggles with identifying a “Hispanic†since
it is not a race, but more a place of origin, such as
Central or South America or countries located in the
Caribbean. Needless to say, there are lots of differences
among these populations. Puerto Ricans living on the
mainland, for example, tend to vote Democratic; those of
Cuban descent tend to vote Republican. But the largest
Puerto Rican population is in New York, which will vote
for Obama anyway. In swing-state Florida, however, Cubans
outnumber Puerto Ricans by 400,000.
Hispanics Are More Affected by a Bad Economy —
A lot has been made of the notion that the Hispanic
population, many of whom are Catholic, tend to embrace
conservative social values but liberal economic policies.
And those conservative social values give Republicans an
opportunity to attract them to the GOP.
But the real opportunity for the GOP to get their
presidential vote in 2012 comes from the devastating
impact President Obama’s economic policies have had on
lower-income families. Texas, where I live, has the
second largest Hispanic population; they come mostly from
Mexico and Central America, according to the Census. Most
are hard workers who take service sector jobs in
agriculture, construction, yard and landscape work, and
restaurants. When the economy goes south, they are some
of the first and hardest hit.
Those who are citizens and can vote may decide that Obama
has had his chance. The recession officially ended in
June of 2009, yet two years later the unemployment rate at
9.1 percent is still disastrously high—and much higher
for Hispanics. Even more troubling, the president seems
befuddled about what to do next.
Of course, Obama may still get more Hispanic votes than
his Republican challenger, but that doesn’t mean he
wins; Sen. John Kerry won the Hispanic vote over President
Bush in 2004 by 9 percentage points, and Bush still won.
But there is little reason to think, both for demographic
reasons and the sour economy, that Hispanics will provide
Obama with a victory in 2012.
However, the Census Bureau publication does point to a
trend that neither party can ignore. Hispanics are
becoming a larger and more politically potent force in
U.S. politics. The party that moves to provide them with
the greatest opportunities, not the most handouts, is the
one that will capture their allegiance for the long term.
Merrill Matthews is a resident scholar with the
Institute for Policy Innovation in Dallas, Texas.
