The Latino vote: Can it make a difference?

Omar E. Zapata | THE RIDER

With the Nov. 3 election less than six weeks away, UTRGV professors say Latinos could impact the results if they vote based on issues important to them.

Maritza De La Trinidad, an associate professor of Mexican American Studies, said the Latino vote is made up of many different groups of people whose families or heritage are from Latin American or Spanish-speaking countries. With many different groups in that umbrella term, every ethnicity has a different history of voting and this shows in how they currently vote.

She said immigration is an issue that most Latinos deal with or have been affected by, but that does not mean they all have the same viewpoint. 

 “We may all be Spanish speakers, immigration may affect us in one way or another, but we [Latinos] all have different views,” Trinidad said. 

The U.S. Hispanic population in 2019 was 60,572,237, up 20% or 10,093,626 since 2010, according to a news release on population estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau.

This presidential election, Latinos are projected, for the first time ever, to be the largest racial or ethnic minority eligible to vote, according to the Pew Research Center.  With 32 million projected to be able to vote, this accounts for 13.3% of all eligible voters. Texas Congressional District 34, which includes Cameron and Hidalgo counties, has an estimated 336,000 eligible Hispanic voters. In Texas Congressional District 15, which includes part of Hidalgo County, 73% of its total eligible voters are Hispanic.

The voting rate for Latinos in 2016 was 47.6%, down 2.3% from 2008, when it was 49.9%, according to a study by the U.S. Census Bureau. In 2000, 44.1% of eligible Latino voters cast ballots. 

“So, in terms of historical patterns of voting, they’re getting better,” De La Trinidad said. “Historically, they had been low, but a lot of that a lot of that was due to political and legal barriers to voting.”

She said the Latino vote has been a deciding factor in past elections.

“The Mexican American vote was extremely important and may have been the deciding factor in President [John F.] Kennedy’s election in 1960,” De La Trinidad said.

She said during the 1960s, there was a lot of activism around voting and the importance of it. Various organizations, such as La Raza Unida Party, were created to elect representatives who would fight for Latino issues.

De La Trinidad said after Kennedy was assassinated, Latinos rallied around his successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson.

“What they wanted was national involvement, national inclusion, inclusion in the national federal structure,” she said. “They wanted appointments to cabinets, they wanted appointments to important government positions so that they would be able to better represent their local constituency.”

Sylvia Gonzalez-Gorman, an assistant professor of political science, said the Latino voter turnout has historically been low.

“It was high during the Obama administration, and a lot of Latinos did vote for Obama, and we saw mixed results with the Trump administration,” Gorman said.

She said low voter turnout within the Latino community could be attributed to multiple reasons. One reason might be economic, she said, meaning that individuals with lower socioeconomic status sometimes cannot take time off from work to go vote.

A second reason, she said, might be disinterest in voting, meaning Latinos might say, “What does it matter if I vote? Nothing is going to change anyway.”

“So, there’s that disinterest or apathy towards the political process in general,” Gorman said.

The third reason is how the Latino vote is not targeted by politicians until two months or so before the election, she said. If one looks outside the Rio Grande Valley or California, there are not many Latino representatives that are calling folks to go vote.

“So, there’s not a lot of interest in the Latino vote until two months before an election,” Gorman said. “That’s when they start engaging the Latinos.”

She said solutions to low voter turnout is to get Latino communities registered to vote and to vote. She also said that encouraging Latinos to educate themselves on issues important to them will more likely get them to the polls.

In 2016, Latino Decisions, a leader in Latino political opinion research, conducted a collaborative multiracial post-election (CMPS) survey that found the three most important issues to Latinos were immigration reform, health care and job creation/improvement of the economy. The survey, conducted by 86 social scientists from 55 universities, had 10,415 participants. 

“Immigration legislation affects a large number of Latinos because of the different laws right now,” De La Trinidad said.

She said issues regarding health affect Latinos in large numbers, especially in the Valley.

“One of the reasons that COVID hit so hard is because … the Valley has lower numbers of people who are insured,” De La Trinidad said.

She said if Latinos voted based on issues that are important to them, they could turn the election and make a huge difference.

Javier Villarreal, a political science sophomore at UTRGV and a student ambassador for Battleground Texas, a nonprofit organization helping to get Texans registered to vote, said he firmly believes Latinos are going to show up to vote and make a difference.

Villarreal’s part in Battleground Texas is to get as many people in the Valley registered to vote as possible.

He believes a leading factor in the low voter turnout in the region is the lack of voter information.

“As the months have rolled through, I have worked on registering 18-year-olds across the Valley and I have two responses coming from that age group, these being, ‘I don’t care about the government’ or ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’” Villarreal said.

He said there has to be a mobilization of information about what voting leads to and what it affects.

“Voting does not change things overnight. … We have to keep our candidates in check,” Villarreal said. “They work for us. It is our White House, not theirs. We have a really powerful voice and we have to use it, especially as Gen Z.”

De La Trinidad said she encourages UTRGV students to get educated and vote.

“Change happens through young people,” she said. “Many historical changes have happened because young people have gotten involved.”

The deadline to register to vote is Oct. 5, with early voting starting Oct. 13 and ending Oct. 30.

For more information on how to register to vote and other election information, visit the Hidalgo County Elections Department or Cameron County Elections Department websites.