Swing Hispanics

By Jason Riley

Thursday, 22 March 2012

Republicans such as strategist Karl Rove and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush have been saying for years that the GOP will have difficulty winning future presidential elections if it can’t win more support from Latinos. New data from the Pew Hispanic Center bolsters that claim.   According to Pew, the 10 states with the largest Hispanic populations are California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois, Arizona, New Jersey, Colorado, New Mexico and Georgia. Moreover, the “nation's Hispanic population grew in nearly every county between 2000 and 2010.” Hispanics are one in six U.S. citizens and one in four of the babies born in the U.S. Between 2010 and 2020, they will account for 74% of the growth in the labor market.   Nearly half (47%) of Hispanics still live in the traditional immigrant gateway states of Texas and California. But it is where the other half lives that has political implications.   The Hispanic population is growing in several key swing states, such as Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado and Florida. These are states that George W. Bush carried in 2000 and 2004 but that went for Barack Obama in 2008. Hispanics are now 15% of Nevada’s population, 13.7% of Colorado’s, and nearly 16% of Florida’s.     < Prev   Next >