Census Data Shows Huge Gains and Huge Opportunities for Hispanics

Last year after the election cycle concluded, I published a report showing the increase in participation among Hispanic voters. You can read an updated report here. Most of the focus of this report and others was on the increase in registration and participation of Hispanic voters.  Given the historic turnout, this was a natural response. 

However, our good friends at the Census tend to publish their voting and registration reports much later and with additional data.  As far as registration and participation rates are concerned, the Census estimates largely confirmed what other reports have already reported, that there was an increase of more than 2 million Hispanics that registered and voted from the last presidential.   

What is lost in this story is that, in addition to the increases in participation, the Census shows there are even more Hispanics eligible to register to vote now than when this process began in 2004.  According to the Census, in 2004 there were an estimated 6.7 million Hispanic voting-age citizens that were not registered to vote, and as mentioned earlier 2.3 million Hispanics registered to vote between the 2004 and 2008 elections.  The latest Census report shows that after 2008, there are 7.9 million Hispanic voting-age citizens that are not registered to vote.

This means that Hispanics are turning 18 years old and/or are becoming citizens at a significantly faster rate that they are being registered.  This also means that there significant opportunities for Hispanics to continue to impact the electoral map and several state and local elections.  If Hispanics continue to register and participate at the same rate as they did between 2004 and 2008, then we can expect an additional 2.5 to 3 million Hispanic voters in the next Presidential.  If the registration rate is increased to match the increase in eligible voters then you can expect an increase of 3 to 4 million new Hispanic voters in the next Presidential election.

The increase in new Hispanic voters is extremely important to both political parties.  The Republican party has suffered significant brand damage among Hispanic voters in recent election cycles, and that has benefitted the Democratic party.  However, the Hispanic community has shown that it is a swing electorate, and neither party has solidly locked-in their support among Hispanic voters.  The addition of such large numbers of new eligible unregistered Hispanics poses great opportunities for both parties to make their case to a group (Unregistered Hispanic Voters) who has yet to show any party loyalties.  I look forward to the dog and pony show.