Forbes: Hispanics Won’t Bring Obama Victory in 2012
NewsMax
But Merrill Matthews, a resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation in Dallas, points to several factors that weigh against Obama and the Democrats counting on Hispanics to save them in next year’s elections.
In an article for Forbes magazine headlined “Hispanics Won’t Save Obama in 2012,” Matthews notes that according to the 2010 Census, 16 percent of America’s 308.7 million people were of Hispanic or Latino origin.
Also, more than half of the growth in the total U.S. population between 2000 and 2010 was due to the increase in the nation’s Hispanic population, and 67 percent of Hispanics reportedly voted for Obama in 2008.
“The Obama campaign thinks that growth could swing important states to the president,” Matthews writes, but that thinking is “wishful and deluded” for these reasons:
• Only 10 million Hispanics voted in the 2008 election, 9 percent of all voters. The Hispanic population is younger than the general population, and younger people are less likely to vote. Plus, a large percentage of Hispanics aren’t old enough to vote. Matthews also points out that it’s not known how many of the country’s 50 million Hispanics are citizens eligible to vote, since the Census counts people, not voters.
• Hispanics live disproportionately in large-population blue states where their votes likely won’t influence the outcome. California, New York, Illinois, and New Jersey will probably deliver their electoral votes to the Democrat in the next presidential election with or without the Hispanic vote. Similarly, the Hispanics likely won’t take Texas and Arizona out of the red column.
• Hispanics are diverse. Puerto Ricans living on the mainland tend to vote Democratic, while Cuban-Americans tend to vote Republican. The largest Puerto Rican population is in New York, a solid blue state, and in swing-state Florida, Cubans outnumber Puerto Ricans by 400,000.
• Hispanics are more affected by a bad economy. With unemployment high among Hispanics, “those Hispanics who can vote may decide that Obama has had his chance,” Matthews observes.
He concludes: “There is little reason to think, both for demographic reasons and the sour economy, that Hispanics will provide Obama with a victory in 2012.”
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June 20, 2011