The myth of the Latino voting bloc

The GOP has less to fear from a backlash than many claim.

Is it possible that the immigration issue has far less importance to registered Latino voters then many believe? Although, this article clearly suggest that the Hispanic vote may not be the great swinging pendulum it’s made out to be. It also, gives us insight into the voting Latino’s political loyalty being more to the issues and quality of the candidates seeking their votes. Imagine that, a group that votes based on who a candidate is and what he stands for, not neccesarily for the party he belongs to. Go figure…

By Steven Malanga

When President Bush’s immigration reform bill collapsed this summer, largely because of objections from his own party, open-borders advocates warned that the GOP would pay a harsh political price for killing the bill. Latino support had been crucial in electing Bush, the argument went, and Latino voters represented a rising electoral tide that Republicans were ignoring at their peril.

But such commentary is based on an inaccurate picture of the Latino voting public that emerged after the 2004 election and persists today. Just days after the election, for instance, Dick Morris, a former pollster and advisor to President Clinton, declared that Latinos had elected Bush; they represented 12% of the electorate, Morris reasoned, and 45% of them had pulled the levers for the president, enough to be decisive.

The Latino vote for Bush was far from decisive, however, and it may be years before it plays a pivotal role in a national election. Latinos may represent about 14% of the U.S. population, but they constituted just 6% of the 2004 electorate — 7.5 million voters out of 125 million. According to Census Bureau data, only 34% of the nation’s adult Latino population registered to vote in 2004, and 28% voted. By contrast, 67% of the country’s adult white, non-Latino population and 56% of its adult black population voted in 2004. Black voters outnumbered Latino voters nearly 2 to 1 in 2004.

Exit polls taken during 2004 also indicate Latino support for Bush may have been exaggerated. In different polls, Bush’s share of the Latino vote ranged from a high of 44% to a low of 33%. Yet subsequent academic studies have estimated Bush’s actual level of Latino support at the lower end, somewhere between 35% and 37%. Seen in this context, the “swing” of voters from Bob Dole, who garnered 21% of the Latino vote in 1996, to George W. Bush was hardly historic. In 1984, Ronald Reagan captured 37% of the Latino vote — a performance at least equal to Bush’s.

This suggests that the key to winning Latino votes may be running good candidates, not pandering. Latino voters themselves seem to agree. A 2004 Washington Post poll found that immigration was the least important issue among Latino voters, with only 3.5% placing it at the top of their concerns.

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