The Latino Vote: population flourishes but electoral sea change is yet to come

[JRLeft]

Across America an electoral giant is stirring. The country's growing Latino population – projected to be almost a third of the US population by 2050 – is changing the demographic face of the nation, with potentially huge political consequences.

Since 1986 it has more than tripled from 7.5 million to 23.7 million this year.

Several of the key battleground states that are likely to determine the result of the presidential election on 6 November have large Hispanic populations. In Florida, the quintessential swing state, there are 2.1million eligible Latino voters, one in six of the electorate.

That's comfortably enough to sway the result in a state which Barack Obama won in 2008 by fewer than 250,000 votes over John McCain.

Colorado, another key battleground state this year, has one in eight eligible voters, or 13%, who are Latino. Nevada has 224,000 eligible Hispanic voters, about 100,000 more than the margin by which Obama won the state last time.

Despite the steadily rising strength of the American Latino community, it remains a relatively poorly understood and unrealised electoral force. What motivates Hispanic adults to back one candidate and not the other, or even vote at all?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/05/latino-vote-population-electoral-project?newsfeed=true

[Vincardog]

1. What motivates Hispanic adults to back one candidate and not the other? I bet if Willard pissed

on enough of them it would make a difference.