• Census,  Hispanic Vote

    Census Watch: Hispanic Population Now 16.3 Per Cent of the United States

    According to the latest 2010 census.

    Hispanics are now the largest minority group in the United States. According to the 2010 Census, 50.5 million Hispanics now reside in the U.S. This means that Hispanics account for 16.3% of the total population in the U.S. By comparison, 63.7% of the population is white, 12.2% is black, and 4.7% is Asian. Nearly 2% of the population checked more than one race on their census form. The nation’s Latino population, which was 35.3 million in 2000, grew 43% over the decade. The Hispanic population also accounted for most of the nation’s growth (56%) from 2000 to 2010. Among children ages 17 and younger, there were 17.1 million Latinos in 2010, or 23.1% of this age group

    But, geographically most Hsipanics continue to live in just nine states.

    Geographically, most Hispanics still live in nine states that have large, long-standing Latino communities — Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, New Mexico, New Jersey, New York and Texas — but the share living in other states has been growing.

    In 2010, 76% of Latinos lived in these nine states, compared with 81% in 2000 and 86% in 1990. (In 2000, 50% of Hispanics lived in California and Texas alone. In 2010, that share was 46.5 %.) Despite the pattern of dispersion, however, there are more Latinos living in Los Angeles County (4.7 million) than in any state except California and Texas.

    This will affect public policy and voting patterns both statewide and nationally as POLS attempt to persuade Hispanics to support their party/candidacy.


    The complete report is here.

  • Census,  Election 2010,  Hispanic Vote,  President 2012

    Hispanic Vote 2010: No Discernible Trend?

    Apparently so in an analysis of recent census bureau data.

    Before the 2010 election some commentators argued that the failure to address immigration would increase Hispanic turnout, while others argued it would cause them to stay home. New Census Bureau voting data show that neither of these predictions was correct. Hispanic turnout conformed to the pattern of recent mid-term elections.

    Here are the findings:

    • Prior to the 2010 election, the Center for Immigration Studies projected that Hispanics would comprise 6.8 percent of the national electorate in congressional elections. The new data from the Census Bureau almost exactly match this projection, with Hispanics comprising 6.9 percent of the vote.
    • Our projection was correct because it was based on the assumption that Hispanic turnout would follow past patterns for mid-term elections and that Hispanics would neither be especially animated nor especially disengaged in 2010.
    • The 31.2 percent of Hispanic citizens who voted in 2010 matches the 31.2 percent who voted in the 2002 mid-term election, and is very similar to the 32.3 percent who voted in 2006. All of these values fall within the margin of error of ± 1.7 percentage points and indicate that 2010 was not unusual.
    • In addition to the 6.9 percent of voters who identified as Hispanic in the 2010 election, 77.5 percent of voters identified as non-Hispanic white, 11.5 percent as non-Hispanic black, and 2.4 percent identified as non-Hispanic Asian.
    • The size of the Hispanic vote varied significantly by state. In 2010, Hispanics were less than 5 percent of the vote in 39 states plus the District of Columbia, and more than 10 percent of the vote in only five states (New Mexico, California, Arizona, Texas, and Florida).
    • Polling of Hispanics indicates that immigration is not one of the top issues for Hispanics. Similar to other voters, education, jobs, health care, and the federal deficit all rank above immigration in importance.1
    • This does not mean immigration is unimportant to Hispanics. What is does mean is that it was not an issue that was important enough in 2010 to have a discernible impact on their overall turnout.
    • Only 27 percent of Hispanic voters in the 2010 election were immigrants themselves (naturalized U.S. citizens) and just 14.9 percent lived in the same households as a non-citizen. The lack of direct personal experience with immigration may explain why the issue does not rank higher in importance to Hispanic voters.
    • CNN’s national exit polls showed that, in 2010, 60 percent of Hispanics voted for Democrats and 38 percent voted for Republicans. This compares to 69 percent and 30 percent in the last mid-term election in 2006. If the failure to address immigration played a role in Hispanic voting, it seems to have helped Republicans.2
    • However, the increase in the Republican share of the Hispanic vote in 2010 is almost certainly related to general voter dissatisfaction with the economy, and parallels gains that Republicans made among many demographic groups.

    Here is a graph on Hispanic share of adults, citizens and voters from 2000 to 2010.

    Note the lower rate of share of voters

    In the next table, you will see the number and percentage of the vote by race and ethnicity in 2010.

    Figure 2 and table 1 show that the Hispanic vote is steadily increasing but continues to be a relatively modest share nationally of the total vote.

    Using the 2010 election as an example, the white electorate was 11 times larger in 2010 than the Hispanic electorate. This means that 1 percent of the white electorate equals 11 percent of the Hispanic electorate. Or put a different way, if a national candidate increased his or her share of the Hispanic vote by 11 percentage points, but in the process lost one percentage point of the white vote, there would no net gain in votes. Although the overall Hispanic population is now significantly larger than the overall black population, the black electorate is still much larger. In 2010, the black electorate was 64 percent larger than the Hispanic electorate.

    Let’s look at Hispanics by state.

    The size of the Hispanic vote varied significantly by state and Hispanics are concentrated in five states – California, Florida, Texas, New York and Arizona. As a share of voters, Hispanics were more than 30 per cent of the vote in New Mexico and between 10 and 20 per cent in California, Arizona,Texas and Florida.

    There were six states (Nevada, New York, Colorado, New Jersey, Hawaii, and Illinois) in which Hispanics were between 5 and 10 percent of the electorate in 2010. Of these, Nevada and Colorado are often considered battleground states. In most of the other traditional battleground states such as Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and New Hampshire, Hispanics are a small fraction of voters.

    So, what this all mean?

    Don’t look for Hispanic pandering to be a part of the national GOP election in 2012.

    The path to winning the White House through the electoral college will not be through any states where Hispanics vote will make a difference, except perhaps in Florida, where a Cuban American Hispanics have an electoral presence in the GOP primary.

  • California,  Census,  Hispanic Vote

    Census Watch: California Latino Population Booming

    I had posted on this previously here but here are more of the numbers.

    California’s Latino population grew nearly three times as much as the state as a whole in the last decade, making the state home to more than a quarter of the nation’s Latinos, according to a new Census Bureau report.

    While California’s population grew by 10 percent, the 2010 census found, the Latino growth was 27.6 percent, accounting for more than 90 percent of the state’s overall population gain. Latinos accounted for more than half of the nation’s growth during the decade and now are 16.3 percent of the U.S. population.

    Latinos, the census said, now are 37.6 percent of all Californians, up more than five percentage points since 2000. That percentage is exactly the same as that of Texas, with both states trailing only New Mexico, at 46.3 percent.

    Many states have seen higher Latino growth rates than California, some nearly 150 percent, such as Alabama and South Carolina.

    Latinos now trail non-Latino whites in California by about four percentage points. They are expected to become the state’s largest ethnic group by mid-decade.

    This will mean more Hispanic officeholders as the California Redistricting Commission draws new Legislative and Congressional boundaries based on the census. It will also mean the California GOP may shrink further into irrelevancy like New York, Massachusetts and Maryland since the Republican brand has been tarnished by the national party’s postion on illegal immigration.

  • Census,  Hispanic Vote

    Census Watch: 2010 Latino Electorate = More Voters and More Non-Voters



    The Pew Hispanic Center has a new report out about Hispanics and the 2010 midterm elections.

    More than 6.6 million Latinos voted in last year’s election — a record for a midterm — according to an analysis of new Census Bureau data by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center.

    Latinos also were a larger share of the electorate in 2010 than in any previous midterm election, representing 6.9% of all voters, up from 5.8% in 2006.

    Rapid population growth has helped fuel Latinos’ increasing electoral participation. According to the Census Bureau, 50.5 million Hispanics were counted by the 2010 Census, up from 35.3 million in 2000. Over the same decade, the number of Latino eligible voters — adults who are U.S. citizens — also increased, from 13.2 million in 2000 to 21.3 million in 2010.

    However, even though more Latinos than ever are participating in the nation’s elections, their representation among the electorate remains below their representation in the general population. In 2010, 16.3% of the nation’s population was Latino, but only 10.1% of eligible voters were Latino and fewer than 7% of voters were Latino.

    This gap is driven by two demographic factors — youth and non-citizenship. More than one-third of Latinos (34.9%) are younger than the voting age of 18, a share greater than that of any other group. And an additional 22.4% are of voting age, but are not U.S. citizens.

    Read it all.

    I think both Democrats and Republicans are cognizant of these demographic changes. The issue of the Hispanic vote will be polarizing short term and the GOP may very well cut their losses and abandon states, like California that have large Democratic Hispanic voters. But, this will gradually change as the Hispanic population ages, and assimilates.

    Moreover, I think over the long term the result of the demographic shift will be MORE Hispanic Republican candidates, competing against either Anglo or African-American Democrats.

  • Census,  Hispanic Vote,  President 2012

    President 2012: Does the GOP Have a Hispanic Voter Problem?

    Yes and President Obama will exploit it in 2012.

    Hispanic population. Latinos made up half of all U.S. population growth in the past decade, by far the fastest growing group. Hispanics have nearly doubled to make up 16% of the country. We’ve said it here before, and now with the new Census numbers out it’s worth repeating: Latinos are already a serious political force in America and their influence will only get bigger. And that could be problematic for Republicans on a presidential level, because overwhelmingly right now, they prefer Democrats. Obama won Latinos 67%-31% in 2008, and they made up just 9% of the electorate. In the 2010 exit polls, when Republicans swept Democrats out of the U.S. House, Hispanics still preferred Democrats by a similar 64%-34% margin. And they made up just 8% of the electorate. In fact, look at the states out West with large Hispanic populations and how Democrats performed out West vs. the Midwest. In states with high Hispanic populations, Democrats were able to keep their losses to a minimum, holding on to Senate seats in Colorado and Nevada, keeping California fairly blue and holding on to House seats in Arizona they should have lost. As one Republican operative said to us in April 2010: “We have problems, clearly, with Hispanics,” the operative said. “If we do not manage an immigration bill appropriately, and we alienate Hispanics, Obama’s going to run up his numbers in the 70s [with Hispanics]. That is not a sustainable model to win.”

    The national GOP will soon have to decide on a strategy to reach out to the growing Hispanic population of voters. It will have to be a multi-faceted voter outreach program, while at the same time isolating the growth of illegal immigration, which in turn results (in a decade or so) more Hispanic voters.

    As you can see, this will take some finesse.

    Or, the GOP can write off most of the Hispanic vote and try to isolate the effects of their numbers to a few states.

    There is danger to the Democrats as well, since too much pandering to African-American and Hispanic voters will label them as the NON-white party.

    But, for now, President Obama has the advantage going into 2012 and you won’t be seeing too much GOP Presidential campaigning in California.

  • California,  Census,  Illegal Immigration

    California Census 2010: Hispanics RULE

    Well, not really but you get the idea – they have surged in population growth in California.

    Latino children for the first time made up a majority of California’s under-18 population in 2010, as Hispanics grew to 37.6% of residents in the nation’s most populous state.

    A new U.S. Census report showed the state’s non-Hispanic white population fell 5.4% over the past decade, a continuing trend offset by a 27.8% surge in Hispanics and 30.9% increase in non-Hispanic Asians.

    Though in decline, white Californians remained the state’s largest demographic group at 40.1%. But demographers said Hispanics were poised to take the lead.

    Underlying the demographic shifts, California grew at its slowest pace in the past decade in more than a century. The population rose 10% to 37.3 million, an increase in line with the national average.

    As in California, Hispanics are gaining ground in many other states, such as North Carolina, as whites are on the verge of becoming a minority among all newborn children in the U.S.

    What does this mean for California politics when these Hispanic children mature and start to vote? Just as it is now for the very Blue Democratic California – TOUGH.

    Since past electoral history has shown a propensity for Hispanics and Latinos to vote anywhere from 60-75% for Democratic Party candidates, the GOP will be at a demographic disadvantage. There are, of course, districts both Congressional and Legislative where their population numbers will not have as great an impact. And, with redistricting by an impartial commission, the GOP will have a chance there.

    So, what happened and why did this growth of Hispanics occur?

    Easy- the illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central America of the 1980’s to present had children born in the United States as middle-class whites either died or migrated out of the state to Nevada, Arizona or other states like Colorado.

    Mr. Frey said the decline of whites and blacks in the decade, as well as the slowdown of Hispanic growth, is partly attributable to more middle-class families leaving pricey California for more affordable places elsewhere. (…)

    “I think it’s a middle-class flight,” Mr. Frey said. “California is still very pricey, so to the extent people can get affordable housing they leave.”

    But, California is now a no-growth Democratic state which by the way heavily regulates business.

    Good luck with solving that California state budget shortfall.

    And, the Republicans? They will be a dwindling minority party like in New York, Massachusetts and Maryland.

  • Census,  Election 2012

    President 2012: The First Map of Battleground States Updated

    election2010map Presidential Election 2012: The First 2012 Map of Battleground States
    Back in November, I posted a first map of 2012 Presidential battleground states. Of course, this was before the census and a concomitant reapportionment.

    Republican-leaning states will gain at least a half dozen House seats thanks to the 2010 census, which found the nations population growing more slowly than in past decades but still shifting to the South and West.

    The Census Bureau announced Tuesday that the nation’s population on April 1 was 308,745,538, up from 281.4 million a decade ago. The growth rate for the past decade was 9.7 percent, the lowest since the Great Depression. The nation’s population grew by 13.2 percent from 1990 to 2000.

    Michigan was the only state to lose population during the past decade. Nevada, with a 35 percent increase, was the fastest-growing state.

    The new numbers are a boon for Republicans, with Texas leading the way among GOP-leaning states that will gain House seats, mostly at the Rust Belts expense. Following each once-a-decade census, the nation must reapportion the House’s 435 districts to make them roughly equal in population, with each state getting at least one seat.

    That triggers an often contentious and partisan process in many states, which will draw new congressional district lines that can help or hurt either party.

    In all, the census figures show a shift affecting 18 states taking effect when the 113th Congress takes office in 2013.

    Texas will gain four new House seats, and Florida will gain two. Gaining one each are Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah and Washington.

    Now, we have some additional polling/party identification information which should also give us a clue as to the identity of 2012 Presidential KEY battleground states:

    Watching the party identification polling will give us the trend toward or away from the incumbent Democratic President. Remembering Obama/Biden won 365 electoral votes Vs. McCain/Palin 173.

    Looking at the states that lost Electoral Votes:

    7hcefomukkzriiembmfzw95 2012 GOP Bonanza: All 10 States Losing Congressional Seats Tilt Democratic

    And, the states that gained Electoral Votes:

    ml1evzsnyusz6txglpmfia9 2012 GOP Bonanza: All 10 States Losing Congressional Seats Tilt Democratic

    Before, I identified the key battleground states (pre-census release):

    • Ohio – 20 (electoral votes): -2 after reapportionment
    • Virginia – 13
    • Colorado – 9
    • Florida -27: +2 after reapportionment
    • Nevada – 5: +1 after reapportionment
    • Wisconsin -10
    • New Hampshire – 4
    • Indiana – 11
    • North Carolina – 15

    And, I think, at least for now, pending any dramatic change in party identification I will stay with these states.

    The question for the GOP will be: Who will be the best candidate in these nine states to match up against President Barack Obama?

  • Census,  GOP

    2012 GOP Bonanza: All 10 States Losing Congressional Seats Tilt Democratic



    And, 5 of the 8 states picking up congressional seats tilt to the GOP.

    Plus, with the Republicans winning or holding 29 Governorships, the perfect storm for controlling the Congress over the decade is almost complete.

    The full political implications of congressional seat losses in 10 Democratic states remain to be seen, and will in large part depend on the process of redistricting that will now get underway in each state. It is assumed that Democrats will lose some representation in the House as a net result of this process, but the precise way this will play out is not entirely clear. Similarly, although the majority of the states gaining seats are Republican in orientation, it is not clear whether the newly created House districts in each of those states will necessarily end up with a Republican representative, although it can be assumed that the net number of Republican seats in these states will increase.

    The impact of reapportionment on the presidential election process is more straightforward. Traditionally blue states are losing electoral votes, while traditionally red states are gaining them. Various calculations have shown that Barack Obama would still have won the 2008 election even if the electoral votes were divided based on the new census apportionment. But the shift in population between states could give a Republican candidate just enough of an edge to bring victory in a close 2012 presidential race.

    But, let’s see if the GOP can hold its majority. They have blown it before – remember 2006?

  • Census,  GOP

    U.S. Census Shows Slow Population Growth and Likely Republican Party Gains

    Utah gained one Congressional seat, adding 530,716 new residents since 2000, according to the 2010 census. Arches National Park, Moab, Utah. Photo By Flap

    The 2010 census is out and the South and West are among the winning states.

    Republican-leaning states will gain at least a half dozen House seats thanks to the 2010 census, which found the nation’s population growing more slowly than in past decades but still shifting to the South and West.

    The Census Bureau announced Tuesday that the nation’s population on April 1 was 308,745,538, up from 281.4 million a decade ago. The growth rate for the past decade was 9.7 percent, the lowest since the Great Depression. The nation’s population grew by 13.2 percent from 1990 to 2000.

    Michigan was the only state to lose population during the past decade. Nevada, with a 35 percent increase, was the fastest-growing state.

    The new numbers are a boon for Republicans, with Texas leading the way among GOP-leaning states that will gain House seats, mostly at the Rust Belt’s expense. Following each once-a-decade census, the nation must reapportion the House’s 435 districts to make them roughly equal in population, with each state getting at least one seat.

    That triggers an often contentious and partisan process in many states, which will draw new congressional district lines that can help or hurt either party.

    In all, the census figures show a shift affecting 18 states taking effect when the 113th Congress takes office in 2013.

    Texas will gain four new House seats, and Florida will gain two. Gaining one each are Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah and Washington.

    But, a lot of growth was from immigration and how the new people are assimilated, population growth accommodated (infrastructure provided) or if they can be are issues that will soon come to the forefront with the next Congress beginning next month.

    The Rose Institute has an excellent analysis here.

    California has picked up 10 Congressional seats since 1970, growing from 43 in the 1970s to 53 today. Seven of those ten came in one decade alone (after the 1990 census). California gained two districts in 1980, seven in 1990, and another seat in 2000. One contributor to California’s population surge between 1980 and 1990 was the Reagan administration’s large military build-up. The military growth boosted the California economy, which attracted immigration from throughout the country. Between 1980 and 1990, California’s population increased by about 6 million people. Alone among the otherwise high-growth southwestern states, in the past ten years California’s growth slowed to the national average.