Demography and Political Influence: Disentangling the Latino Vote

Abstract

Introduction Understanding the impact of Latino voters on the 2004 election has become a focus of much national attention. Reporters, pundits, and Latino leaders have all made claims of the growing political influence of Latinos as their numbers continue to increase in our population (Meyerson 2002; Schmit 2001a). Additionally, the attention that major national and many statewide candidates have placed on Latino voters seems to confirm these claims (Peterson 2003; Alvarez 2000; Bruni 2000; Fountain 2000). In fact, it has almost become the accepted wisdom that a major part of President Bush's 2004 reelection campaign will focus, as it did in 2000, on reminding voters of his concern for Latinos, as demonstrated by his recent statement of principles regarding undocumented workers in the United States (Bush 2004; Schmit 2001b). Similarly, the Democratic National Committee recently established an office of Latino affairs where strategies are to be developed to attempt to make sure that Latino voters are not taken for granted, as some claim was the case in the previous presidential election (DNC 2004). How accurate is this assumption that population growth can directly lead to increased political influence? Additionally, what variations by state might better help us understand the conditions under which increased political influence can reliably be predicted for the 2004 election? In this essay we examine the growth in Latino population across the last 10 years to systematically assess the accuracy of claims made regarding increased Latino electoral influence. We examine three specific dimensions of this influence. First, we analyze patterns of Latino electoral influence at national and statewide levels. It perhaps goes without saying that the Latino presence in California is quite distinct from that in Texas, New York, or Florida. What is less clear, however, are the precise patterns of this differentiation. Moreover, this decade-long analysis for seven states with some of the highest percentages of Latino population also allows us to see whether gains are consistent across the decade. Second, we assess the representational consequences of Latino electoral influence as reflected in the election of members to Congress and each state house. Again, the longitudinal analysis allows us to assess the consistency of patterns of representational gain. We also analyze the partisan distribution of this influence in the 2003 legislative session. In this part of the analysis, we are especially interested in whether Latino representational gains have occurred in states where the legislative majority party is the party preferred by a majority of Latino voters. Lastly, we use our findings on the above two dimensions to inform a consideration of the strategic role Latinos may play in the 2004 election. That is, whatever the actual electoral influence of Latinos in any specific state, their impact in 2004 must be assessed within current understandings of the presidential competitiveness of specific states and even the possibility that the focus on Latinos may have more to do with larger strategic concerns of major parties and candidates than with securing Latino votes. We refer to this as symbolic mainstreaming. Patterns of Statewide Influence The Census Bureau's Current Population Survey (CPS) 2002 [http://www.census. gov/prod/2003pubs/p20-545.pdf] continued to confirm the upward trend in Latino population growth that has become a mainstay of national demographic analysis since 1980. The CPS reported that Latinos now comprise 13.5% of the national population, up from an estimated 12.5% in 2000. Two elements of this growth are of special significance. One, this was the first time that the Census Bureau's research documented that the percentage of Latinos in the population exceeded the percentage of African Americans, which was estimated at 12.7%. Two, it was the first time that Latinos were estimated to have the highest growth rates in the country. …