For US citizens of Latin American origin, there could be another rude awakening after the elections. Photo: Daniel Foster/Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0)
(Washington/New York, 12. August 2024, the day).- In the USA, the number of Latinos and Latinas eligible to vote has risen from 14.3 million in 2000 to more than 36 million. According to the Pew Research Center, their participation in this year’s 2024 presidential election could once again decide who will win the White House.
This year, Latinos are expected to make up nearly 15 percent of the electorate, nearly double what they represented in 2000, with 7.4 percent of the vote. The states with the most Latino votes are California, with a quarter of the total electorate, followed by Texas, Florida, New York, and Arizona.
Almost 15 percent of voters are of Latin American origin
In part, their potentially decisive role has to do with the US states they primarily live in. Latinos/as make up almost a quarter of the population of Nevada and Arizona, two of the so-called Swing Statesthat can decide the presidential election. But also in the other five Swing States They represent four to six percent of the population – that could be enough to make the difference between a triumph and a defeat for the presidential candidates.
According to polls, Republican candidate Donald Trump has already garnered more support among Latinos, mainly by announcing his economic policies and some socially conservative ideas that are attracting part of the Latino community. Kamala Harris’ campaign, for its part, has just launched its first television ad in Spanish and is now supported by the oldest Latino voter organization in the country, LULAC. The fight for these votes will be crucial for both candidates in the next three months.
The influence of Latinos/as on the political future of Newspool Latin America is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International.
