California Latinos feel ignored by political parties. Will they turn out to vote in midterms?
While fewer people are expected to vote in the upcoming midterm elections, participation among non-Latinos is expected to decline more than among Latinos.
Latinos are an increasingly powerful voting block even as a lot of candidates ignore them, experts say. A record-breaking number of Latinos voted during the 2018 elections, and this year’s turnout will essentially mirror that phenomenon.
As Latino participation rises and turnout among non-Latinos is predicted to decrease, it shows that the impact of the Latino vote is increasing and that investments in states often overlooked, like California, remain important, said Arturo Vargas.
Vargas, who is chief executive officer at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund, said more Latinos are eligible to vote than at any time in U.S. history.
During the 2018 elections, 11.69 million Latinos in the U.S. cast ballots, an increase of 74% from the 2014 election, NALEO data show. Of the Latinos registered to vote, 75% of them said comments about immigration from then-President Donald Trump, a rise in anti-Latino measures and the migrant caravan crisis made them more interested in participating in the election.
This year however, it’s predicted that slightly fewer Latinos (11.61 million) in the U.S. will turn out to vote and California will experience a drop of 1.5% in the Latino vote, with 100,000 fewer Latinos in the state expected to vote compared to 2018. Even with the slight decline, which experts say is statistically insignificant, this would mean that one of every 10 voters in the U.S. and one in four in California will be Latino.
“We project that these numbers, even though they mirror historic turnout in 2018, is the floor for Latino voter turnout,” Vargas said.
Also, the voter turnout projections are based on a statistical model and don’t take some factors into account. Factors influencing the Latino turnout for the 2022 election include the impact of the pandemic, their access to the ballot, naturalization trends, competitive races in various states, changes in voter registration laws and practices and the investments by candidates and political parties to mobilize the group.
Overall, the non-Latino vote is expected to decline by 3.8% and in California by 3.3%, aligning with recent Census numbers that show the population is becoming more diverse.
Vargas added that it will be interesting to see how things play out in the Central Valley, where a number of congressional districts were reconfigured during redistricting to have a Latino majority. This will give Latinos a greater opportunity to elect the candidates they want.
“We need to ensure that they are motivated, that they are contacted by candidates and parties,” he said. “That individual contact is what drives Latino voter turnout.”
Latinos feel ignored
However, Latinos are less likely to be contacted by a campaign than their white counterparts, Pew Research Center shows. Vargas said many Latinos often feel ignored by candidates and political parties, and this discourages them from participating.
“They don’t want candidates and campaigns to assume what is important to them in a particular election,” he said, adding that his organization plans to implement a tracking poll to better understand the priorities of Latinos and whether they were contacted by a campaign.
Moreover, he said, campaign investments tend to happen in just a handful of states that are considered competitive. So states like California, which is considered a blue state, aren’t invested, which affects Latino voter turnout.
“Half of all Latino voters live in (California and Texas). So if there is no investment in California and Texas, campaigns and parties are ignoring one out of two potential Latinos,” he said.
Even in the absence of investment, Latinos took it upon themselves ahead of the 2018 election to encourage people in their households and communities to vote, something that hadn’t been seen before, said Dorian Caal, director of civic engagement research at NALEO Educational Fund.
“They were driven by a lot of the things that we were seeing happening in 2018 and certainly carried over into 2020 to go out and vote again,” he said.
Voter education needed
But many Latinos are young, new to the electorate and still learning to navigate the process, said Rosalind Gold, chief public policy officer at NALEO Educational Fund. She said her organization overwhelmingly receives calls about basic questions like how to get access to a mail-in ballot, how to cast a vote, and where to find a polling place.
“Investment in mobilizing Latinos has to be also accompanied by an investment in basic voter education. … This is critical,” she said, especially with the ongoing changes to voting practices.
The trio of experts agreed that with Latino voter turnout increasing, it must keep pace with the growth for Latino political progress. Political parties must significantly invest resources to sustain the mobilization of Latino voters.
For more information about voting, call NALEO’s bilingual hotline at 1-888-839-8682.
This story was originally published February 22, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
