Pamela Cruz. Peninsula 360 Press
With only one week to go before the U.S. presidential election, the pressure is mounting for the two strongest contenders: Republican and incumbent President Donald Trump, and Democrat Joe Biden, where the Latino vote could make a significant impact.
Currently, there are 32 million people of Latino origin in the U.S. with the right to vote, and for the first time they may be the racial minority with the largest number of voters in the country, with 13.3%.
This means that just over half of the country's 60 million Hispanics are eligible to vote (the smallest proportion of any racial group), because while the Hispanic population has grown rapidly in recent decades, they are not eligible voters.
Unlike other racial or ethnic groups, many Latinos are young (18.6 million are under 18) or non-citizen adults (11.3 million, more than half of whom are unauthorized immigrants).
States like Texas, Arizona and Florida have a large Hispanic community, so they are considered key points in defining the election, where at least 8 out of 10 Latinos registered to vote exercise their right.
According to the Pew Research Center, registered Hispanic voters in the U.S. are expressing growing confidence in Joe Biden's ability to handle key issues like Covid-19, while Trump's is on the decline.
However, unlike other registered Hispanic voters, most Cuban Americans identify themselves as Republicans, a pattern that could have electoral implications as President Trump seeks to regain the important state of Florida this year.
That's because about two-thirds of Hispanic voters who are non-Cuban (65%) identify themselves as Democrats or lean toward them, while 32% is affiliated with the Republican Party.
Nationally, 58% of registered Cuban voters say they are affiliated with or lean towards the Republican Party, while 38% identifies with the Democratic Party.
Even Cubans in Florida have helped make the state's Latino vote different from that of the nation as a whole. In 2016, 54% voted for Donald Trump, compared to 35% for Latino voters in the state as a whole and 28% for Latinos nationwide.
Likewise, participation among Cuban Americans has consistently been one of the highest among eligible Hispanic voting groups. In 2016, 58% of Cubans voted, compared to 55% of Dominicans, 49% of Salvadorans, 46% of Puerto Ricans and 44% of Mexicans.
On the other hand, an X-ray of eligible Latino voters in the U.S. shows that two out of three voters live in five states: California, with 7.9 million; followed by Texas, with 5.6 million; Florida, with 3.1 million; New York, with 2.0 million and Arizona, with 1.2 million.
The states with the highest percentage of eligible Latino voters are New Mexico (43%), California (30%), Texas (30%), Arizona (24%) and Florida (20%).
Texas' 20th Congressional District is home to 359,000 eligible Latino voters, the highest number of any in the country. However, Texas' 16th, 34th and 23rd districts, and Florida's 26th, make up the top five, each with at least 321,000.
California's District 40 has the highest proportion of Latinos (80%) among its eligible voting population, while Texas has four districts where at least seven out of ten eligible voters are Latino: District 34 (79%), District 16 (77%), District 15 (73%), and District 28 (71%).
In 26 congressional districts, Latinos represent 50%s of all eligible voters, the majority in California (11 districts) and Texas (eight districts). Florida (Districts 25, 26 and 27), Arizona (Districts 3 and 7), New York (District 15) and Illinois (District 4) also meet this threshold.
It should be noted that the proportion of the Hispanic population that is eligible to vote varies greatly by state, with 71% of Maine's Hispanic population eligible to vote, as does 68% of Montana's, the highest proportion in the country.