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An Awakened Giant: The Hispanic
Electorate is Likely to Double by 2030
Pew Hispanic Center
T
he record number of
Latinos who cast ballots
for president last year
are the leading edge of an
ascendant ethnic voting bloc that
is likely to double in size within
a generation, according to a Pew
Hispanic Center analysis based
on U.S. Census Bureau data,
Election Day exit polls and a new
nationwide survey of Hispanic
immigrants.
The nation's 53 million
Hispanics comprise 17% of
the total U.S. population but
just 10% of all voters this
year, according to the national
exit poll. To borrow a boxing
metaphor, they still "punch
below their weight."
However, their share of the
electorate will rise quickly for
several reasons. The most important is
that Hispanics are by far the nation's
youngest ethnic group. Their median
age is 27 years—and just 18 years
among native-born Hispanics—
compared with 42 years for that of
white non-Hispanics. In the coming
decades, their share of the age-eligible
electorate will rise markedly through
generational replacement alone.
According to Pew Hispanic Center
projections, Hispanics will account
for 40% of the growth in the eligible
electorate in the U.S. between now
50 |
| Enero/Febrero 2013
and 2030, at which time 40 million
Hispanics will be eligible to vote, up
from 23.7 million now.2
Moreover, if Hispanics' relatively
low voter participation rates and
naturalization rates were to increase to
the levels of other groups, the number
of votes that Hispanics actually cast in
future elections could double within
two decades.
If the national exit poll's estimate
proves correct that 10% of all voters
this year were Hispanic, it would
mean that as many as 12.5 million
Hispanics cast ballots. But perhaps a
more illuminating way to analyze
the distinctive characteristics of the
Hispanic electorate—current and
future—is to parse the more than 40
million Hispanics in the United States
who did not vote or were not eligible to
vote in 2012.
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