Latinos want to see more of their own in office after November midterms

SAN DIEGO — Almost anyone running for office wants the Latino vote. But what Latino voters want is more Latinos in office.

Despite gains in every election cycle, there is a yawning gap between the demographic power of the 53 million Latinos in the U.S. and their political clout.

That’s why getting more Latinos elected in the November midterm elections looms large on the agenda here at the 31st annual conference of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO). On Thursday, the organization released its latest count of Latinos in office: 6,084 nationwide, including 334 at the federal and state levels. That’s a 25 percent increase in 10 years, but not a dramatic change from the previous year.

“There still remains a significant disparity between Latinos elected in office and both the general population and the electorate,” said Arturo Vargas, NALEO’s executive director. “It’s really an underrepresentation, but there have been some notable milestones in the past few election cycles.”

Younger Latinos have trended Democratic, and Rogero predicts that Republicans in swing states will face challenges because of demographic change.

“There are opportunities for both parties to do well, but so far, from what I see, the Latino vote is still not as engaged as it has been in other elections,” said Luis Alvarado, strategic adviser for Revolvis, a San Diego–based Republican consulting firm. “On the national level, we see that Latinos don’t feel the passion to oust the Republicans like they felt in the past. They don’t see Obama as hope and change anymore.”

Latino immigration rights groups have protested the record number of deportations by the Obama administration — critics have dubbed him “deporter in chief” — and the lack of movement toward enacting some type of immigration reform that would give the undocumented a path to citizenship.

“The Latino vote, although it’s the sleeping giant, nobody has found the secret sauce to get them to wake up,” Alvarado said. “Nobody is inspiring Latino voters … I’m sure my Republican friends won’t like to hear this, but I have not seen any organized effort that is tackling this opportunity. They’re more like ‘Let’s not do any harm, so let’s keep our mouths shut.’”

There will likely be more gains for Latinos this November, Vargas said.

In California, Alex Padilla, a Democratic state senator, is running for secretary of state. He was the top vote getter in the June primary.

According to Vargas, there are even more opportunities for Latinos in municipal races. Voters in Long Beach, California, in June elected Robert Garcia, a Peruvian immigrant who is openly gay and becomes the city’s youngest mayor at 36.

The Latino Victory Project, a political action committee co-founded by actress Eva Longoria, is putting its financial muscle behind Democratic Latino candidates in Nevada (Lucy Flores for lieutenant governor), Texas (Leticia San Miguel Van de Putte for lieutenant governor) and California (Democrat Amanda Renteria for Congress), and urging Latinos to go to the polls this November.

Latinos are also hoping to make a mark in Rhode Island, a state where they make up only about 13 percent of the population, compared with 17 percent nationwide, according to the Census Bureau. Current Providence Mayor Angel Taveras is the Democratic gubernatorial candidate.

“We can’t as a community be so engaged in the presidential election and elect a president and yet not turn out for the midterm to elect the people who will work for the president,” Longoria said when she launched the political action committee.

The group is also pushing for more Latinas in office.

Despite the fact that Hispanic women are being elected at a faster rate than Hispanic men, only nine Latinos in the U.S. House are women. There are 90 Latina state legislators. In comparison, there are 19 Latino men in the U.S. House and three in the Senate, plus almost 200 state legislators.

“The population of the Latino community is predominantly young and not of voting age, and there are a lot of non-citizens,” Griego said. “Over time, you’ll see a rapid increase in terms of representation. It’s just a matter of time when turnout will reflect the population.”’

NALEO on Thursday also released projections of Latino voter turnout in the November election nationwide and in key states. It estimated that more than 7.8 million Latinos will vote this year, a 17.8 percent increase from 2010. In key states, including Arizona and Florida, NALEO projects a bigger surge: 39 percent and 31 percent, respectively. The Latino turnout is expected to be 20 percent higher in Texas, 17 percent higher in California and 16 percent higher in Illinois.

But several factors could affect how many Latinos turn out to vote this fall and whom they’ll vote for.

A June 2013 Supreme Court decision invalidated the Voting Rights Act formula that determined which states and localities were required to obtain federal approval before making changes in election policies. The NALEO report said that discriminatory state voting requirements, coupled with a failure to pass immigration reform, could affect turnout.

“Polling of Latinos continues to indicate that Latino voters are paying close attention to the congressional dialogue on immigration reform, and that the failure of Congress to act on the issue may influence how Latinos vote,” the report said. “It is less clear whether this failure will mobilize Latinos who are not yet fully engaged in the political process to cast ballots in Election 2014.”