Pamela Cruz. Peninsula 360 Press
With only a 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 eligible to vote in the United States, and for the first time they could be the racial minority with the largest number of voters in the country, with 13.3%.
This represents just over half of the nation's 60 million Hispanics who 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 age 18) or adult noncitizens (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 to define the election, where at least 8 out of 10 Latinos registered to vote exercise their right.
According to the Pew Research Center, U.S. Hispanic registered voters express growing confidence in Joe Biden's ability to handle key issues like Covid-19; while Trump's is on the decline.
Unlike other registered Hispanic voters, however, most Cuban-Americans identify as Republicans, a pattern that could have electoral implications as President Trump seeks to take back the important state of Florida this year.
And about two-thirds of Hispanic voters who are non-Cuban (65%) identify as or lean toward Democrats, while 32% affiliate with the Republican Party.
Nationally, 58% of Cuban registered voters say they affiliate with or lean toward the Republican Party, while 38% identify 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, as in 2016, 54% voted for Donald Trump, compared to 35% of Latino voters in the state overall and 28% of Latinos nationwide.
Likewise, turnout among Cuban Americans has consistently been one of the highest among eligible Hispanic constituencies. 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 Latino eligible 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 most of any in the country. However, Texas' 16th, 34th and 23rd districts, and Florida's 26th, round out the top five, each with at least 321,000.
California's 40th District has the highest proportion of Latinos (80%) among its eligible voters, 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% of all eligible voters, the most in California (11 districts) and Texas (eight districts). Florida (25th, 26th and 27th districts), Arizona (3rd and 7th districts), New York (15th district) and Illinois (4th district) also meet this threshold.
Notably, the proportion of the Hispanic population that is eligible to vote varies greatly by state, with 71% of Maine's Hispanic population being eligible to vote, as is 68% of Montana's, the highest proportion in the country.
