Members of the Latino Student Union are developing plans to mobilize voters this fall, and their demographic – young Hispanics – could be crucial in electing the next president, one recent poll shows.
According to Coral Gables, Fla.-based polling company Bendixen and Associates, registered Hispanic voters ages 18 to 29 total 2.5 million, or about one-quarter of the general Hispanic electorate. In the overall national electorate, only 17 percent of people fall into that age range.
Voter registration efforts by poll sponsor Democracia USA show a nation-wide surge in newly registered Hispanic voters under 40, polling company president Sergio Bendixen said at a July 17 press conference at the National Press Club in Washington.
This indicates that in swing states, such as New Mexico and Florida, where the growing Hispanic vote may be decisive, “the Hispanic young voter is going to be the key ingredient to winning those states,” Bendixen said.
LSU president Manuel Ruiz said his organization plans to register voters, possibly with the Latino and immigrant advocacy organization CASA de Maryland.
Ruiz is not sure what course of action the group will take, but “we definitely are very politically aware, and we definitely do as much as we can to inform our community,” he said.
But Latino voters don’t cast ballots at the same proportion as white or black voters, and the general youth demographic also underperforms, said Karen Kaufmann, a university associate professor of government and politics, adding that the combined effect is a bleak outlook for high turnout among young Hispanics.
This year might be different, said Ruiz, a senior business major.
Eighty-five percent surveyed in the Bendixen and Associates poll said this will be one of the most important presidential elections in American history, and nearly three-quarters have been closely following the 2008 presidential campaign.
“The Democratic nominee is a man of color – that might play into it,” Ruiz said. However, Ruiz also noted there is an ingrained tension between blacks and Latinos that could affect how they vote.
More than half of the 500 surveyed were born in the U.S., and a plurality – 44 percent – said they consider themselves bicultural. Forty percent, however, said they considered themselves more Hispanic than American, compared to only 14 percent who said they consider themselves more American than Hispanic.
Ninety percent said a lot or some discrimination exists against Hispanics and Latinos in the United States.
The Republican and Democratic candidates could connect to Latinos by witnessing that disenfranchisement firsthand, said Jose Espejo, a senior government and politics major and vice president of programming for LSU.
“I think both have talked to Latino organizations but not necessarily talked to Latinos,” Espejo said, suggesting visits to community centers. “If they do it right, they could swing a lot of voters that way.”
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