Record Number of Latinos Eligible to Vote

Oct. 01, 2012— -- A record number of Latinos are eligible to vote this November. But while both President Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney have targeted Hispanic voters in recent months, whether they will turn up at the polls is uncertain.

According to a new report by the Pew Hispanic Center, "a record 23.7 million Latinos are eligible to vote in the 2012 presidential election." This is up by more than four million since 2008, when the figure stood at 19.5 million.

There were nearly 52 million Latinos in the United States in 2011, about 16.7 percent of the nation's population. But while Hispanics make up the largest minority group in the country, the turnout rate among eligible Latino voters lags behind that of whites and blacks by significant margins.

For example, a 2009 study found that, "in 2008, just 50% of eligible Latino voters cast ballots, compared with 65% of blacks and 66% of whites."

And despite continued growth in the Latino population, the number of Latinos who said they are registered to vote dropped by about 600,000 between 2008 and 2010, according to the Census Bureau data cited in the report. Some of that may be due to less enthusiasm in general for midterm elections. Another interesting factor is voter displacement. Latinos were hit hard by the foreclosure crisis. Many moved to different states, which may have impacted their voter registration. Hispanics are also younger in general -- young people vote less often than their older peers -- and less likely to hold citizenship than other groups.

To top this off, most Latinos live in states that are either solid red like Texas, or solid blue like California. They do, however, stand to play a key role in swing states. Two battleground states, Florida and South Carolina, have already published information that shows an increase in Latino voter registration from 2008. As the report points out, that may be due to an increase in the Latino populations of both states.

The report also provides a breakdown of Latino voters rarely spelled out in other polls.

"Among Latino eligible voters, 58% are of Mexican origin, 14% are of Puerto Rican origin, 6% are of Cuban origin and 22% are of Central American, South American or other Hispanic origin, according to the Pew Hispanic analysis," notes the report. "This differs from the overall Hispanic origin distribution of the general U.S. Hispanic population in which some 64% are of Mexican origin, 9% are Puerto Rican and 5% are Cuban origin."

While Obama is expected to garner about two-thirds of the Latino vote, the number of Latino voters who will actually turnout to vote remains uncertain.