Hispanics Are Likely to Play Larger Role in Next Elections
With historic victories in the midterm elections, Hispanics flexed their growing political muscle, helping elect -- and defeat -- well-known top-tier candidates in places like California and Nevada, New Mexico and Florida. At the same time, a new political profile of Hispanic Republican leaders emerged, giving a clear and loud warning to the Democratic Party that the Latino vote is not a monolithic bloc that the party could continue to take for granted. Now, with the changes brought about by the 2010 congressional reapportionment, Hispanics are likely to play a larger role in national politics, says a new Pew Hispanic Center report released on Wednesday, suggesting far-reaching implications for the 2012 elections.
The reallocation of voting strength, based on a new decennial population count of 308,745,538 Americans, gives more congressional seats to the South and West, where Hispanics make up a large percentage of the population, and take away from the Midwest and Northeast (New York lost two seats), where Hispanics are not as prevalent. Though the shift in seats should expand Latino voting strength and might even empower pro-immigration reform activists who have repeatedly faced opposition in Washington and defeat in their home states, it does not guarantee that Hispanic Democrats will easily gain a bigger foothold in their states.
Some of those states, like Texas, where Latinos make up a large segment of the population, are states under the control of conservative Republicans in state legislatures and state houses. They are likely to redraw districts to dilute Democratic strength and to favor Republicans who generally support the sort of tough anti-illegal immigration laws that many Latinos oppose. Indeed, a growing number of newly surging Hispanic Republicans could make further gains in Southern and Western states. While no Hispanic Democrat won high office in November, three Hispanic Republicans did: Susana Martinez, 51, whose victory in November made her the first female Hispanic governor of heavily Democratic New Mexico; Marco Rubio, 39, the charismatic new Florida senator; and Brian Sandoval, who was elected the first Hispanic governor of Nevada.
The changes in the redrawn congressional map can't be overestimated. For instance, two states that gained seats, Nevada and Florida, have been major swing battlegrounds in recent presidential elections (voting for the Republic nominee, George W. Bush, in 2004, and for the Democrat, Barack Obama, in 2008). They will play even more crucial roles in 2012 and beyond. If President Obama were to win in 2012 the same states he won in 2008, he would get six fewer electoral votes under the new alignment. At 47 million strong, Hispanics are the nation's largest minority, making up more than 15 percent of the population. They constitute only about 7 percent of registered voters nationwide. But they make up a higher percentage in Hispanic-heavy states such as California, Texas, Florida and much of the rest of the West and Southwest.
Latinos made up 15 percent of the electorate in Nevada in 2010. In California, their strength rose to 22 percent in the midterms from 18 percent in 2008. Hispanics voted heavily for Democratic candidates in those states, pollsters said. For instance, an estimated 90 percent of Hispanic voters supported Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada.
Faced with a Republican tea party candidate, Reid was rescued from almost certain defeat by the Hispanic vote. Still, Latino Democrats have felt taken for granted and neglected by their party. For one thing, immigration reform, much promised and long awaiting, has gone nowhere but to repeated defeat. And, incredibly, the Democrats did not put up a single Latino candidate for major office in the midterms - not one.
On the other hand, several Latino Democrats seeking re-election to congressional seats lost to Republican Latinos in Texas, Washington State and Idaho. A few weeks ago, in the wake of the Senate's defeat of the Dream Act, a 10-year-old piece of legislation that would open a path to citizenship to young illegal immigrants, Latino activists threatened to cut ties to President Obama and the Democrats and take the movement to the streets. A Hispanic leader, Rep. Luis Gutiérrez of Chicago, vowed to split from the Democratic Party and launch a campaign of direct action like the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Though Gutiérrez is not a household name, he was named the second-most important Latino leader, behind
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor of New York, in a Pew Hispanic Center poll. Gutiérrez's threat was not the only one coming from militant Latinos. Others across the nation were weighing whether to break ties with the Democrats and form an independent grass-roots organization. They discussed the idea among themselves, inspired by the tea party, not in substance but style, the Las Vegas Sun reported. They wanted to call it the "Tequila Party."