Mobilizing Opportunities

The Evolving Latino Electorate and the Future of American Politics

Ricardo Ramírez

• Publisher: University of Virginia Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780813935119
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political History & Theory
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The growth of the Latino population is the most significant demographic shift in the United States today. Yet growth alone cannot explain this population's increasing impact on the electorate; nor can a parsing of its subethnicities. In the most significant analysis to date on the growing political activation of Latinos, Ricardo Ramírez identifies when and where Latino participation in the political process has come about as well as its many motivations. Using a state-centered approach, the author focuses on the interaction between demographic factors and political contexts, from long-term trends in party competition, to the resources and mobilization efforts of ethnic organizations and the Spanish-language media, to the perception of political threat as a basis for mobilization.

The picture that emerges is one of great temporal and geographic variation. In it, Ramírez captures the transformation of Latinos' civic and political reality and the engines behind the evolution of this crucial electorate.

Race, Ethnicity, and Politics

1

STATE CONTEXTS, MOBILIZATION, AND THE EVOLVING LATINO ELECTORATE

In 2008, pundits heralded Latino voters as playing a significant role in the Democratic presidential primary. Having swept up most of the sought-after endorsements of Latino elected officials long before the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, the Hillary Clinton campaign believed that Latino votes would follow suit. Latinos were seen as a key component of Clinton’s campaign strategy, and it was expected that the growing bloc of Latino voters could help swing key states in February’s “Super Tuesday.”¹ According to Sergio Bendixen, Clinton’s head of Latino outreach, February 5 “is the firewall, and the Latino vote in California is the most important part of the firewall… . If she can win California, no matter what happens the race is on” (Carlton 2008). Nine months later, Latinos would be seen as a bloc of voters crucial to the election of Barack Obama as president, having helped him win key swing states like Florida, New Mexico, Colorado, and even Indiana and North Carolina (Barreto, Collingwood, and Manzano 2010).

Four years later, there was renewed anticipation about the role that Latinos could play in the presidential election. In March 2012, Time magazine posited that “Latino voters will swing the 2012 election.” This cover story focused on the growth, presence, and preferences of the Latino electorate and the resulting consequences for the presidential election. Not all pundits or analysts were as upbeat about the role of Latinos or their willingness to coalesce behind one candidate in the general election. Less than one month before the election, some state polls such as the Tampa Bay Times / Bay News 9 / Miami Herald poll of Florida voters suggested that Latino support only slightly favored the incumbent president. Other state polls, such as the one completed by SurveyUSA, claimed that Barack Obama held only an eight-point lead over Mitt Romney among Latino voters in Nevada. The Pew Hispanic Center, through its more systematic sampling of Latinos, estimated that support for Barack Obama would likely be much higher, but indicated that Latinos were less certain about voting than non-Latinos (Lopez and Gonzalez-Barrera 2012). Unlike English-language mainstream outlets, the impreMedia/Latino Decisions tracking poll consistently estimated a more than two to one preference for Barack Obama over the challenger Mitt Romney, and their election-eve report estimated high voter turnout.

On election night, November 6, 2012, and in the days that followed, pundits trumpeted the significant role that Latinos played in the election and the role that they would play in years to come. An editorial political cartoon in the New Yorker highlighted the political establishment’s urgent need for “binders full of Latinos.”² While the hype about Latinos’ potential impact on national elections has been a recurring theme in every presidential election since the mid–1990s, the media has only recently begun to pivot away from earlier metaphors of Latinos as a “sleeping giant” based on the disparity between the size of the Latino population and the potential but unrealized political impact of the Latino electorate. In the end, the noteworthy change in the landscape of American politics during the 2012 election was not the awakening of a Latino “sleeping giant.” Instead it was the apparent wake-up call to campaign strategists about the significance and evolving nature of the Latino electorate despite many signs of this change throughout the 1990s and the first decade of the twenty-first century. Media pundits, think tanks, and campaign strategists underestimated the level of political interest in the election among Latino voters. Not only was estimated turnout higher than had been predicted, but the partisan distribution of votes cast in favor of Barack Obama’s reelection also took many by surprise.³ One of the most cited revelations had to do with the fact that Barack Obama was the preferred candidate among Latinos in Florida for a second consecutive election. The political behavior of Latino voters in Florida in 2008 and 2012 is noteworthy beyond their presidential vote choice in one or two elections. These elections reflect the consequences of growth and change in the composition of the state’s Latino electorate whose partisan attachments are increasingly malleable. Moreover, it is not just in Florida where the Latino electorate is evolving. The change is taking place throughout the United States.

Existing Approaches to Understanding the (Heterogeneous) Latino Electorate

The study of Latino voters can take various forms, ranging from historical narratives and case studies to quantitative analyses of Latinos focused on understanding the extent to which Latino voters are distinct, and the consequence of this behavior on political outcomes. Three approaches characterize most studies of Latinos: the “ethnic approach,” the “pivotal vote thesis,” and the “demography is destiny” approach. I discuss each of these approaches before turning to my state-centered and process-driven approach.

There is much discussion of the Latino population and the Latino electorate. Characterizations of Latinos as an easily identifiable group may seem justified because the group is more concentrated than other racially defined groups. Three-quarters of all Latinos live in just ten states: California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois, Arizona, New Jersey, Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada. For comparison, to reach the same threshold among other racial groups, one would have to take the top 22 states, 15 states, 16 states, and 11 states for non-Hispanic whites, African Americans, American Indian & Alaska Native, and Asian Americans respectively (Statistical Abstract of the United States 2012).⁴ Even with concentration of Latinos in ten states, the rates of population concentration vary by individual states. While Latinos constitute 16 percent of the population nationally, and at least 16 percent in the ten states mentioned, the mean proportion of Latino population in these ten states is 27 percent. There is also within-group variation of population concentration, national origin diversity, socioeconomic status, nativity, and age, which helps make the case against a view of a singular or homogeneous Latino population.⁵

Cognizant of the dangers of thinking of Latinos as one undifferentiated group, the “ethnic” approach focuses on the heterogeneous nature of the Latino population based on national origin and the related differences with respect to citizenship, immigrant generation, and class (Oboler 1995; DeSipio 1996; Jones-Correa 1998; Beltrán 2010; Abrajano and Alvarez 2010). This approach to the study of Latino politics focuses on understanding the differences in voting behavior among and between Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Cuban Americans, the three largest national-origin groups, while also questioning the rationale for treating Latinos as a pan-ethnic group. This ethnic approach gained traction at an earlier period because the distinct history of arrival and presence by Latinos from different parts of Latin America represented very unique patterns of social and political integration largely related to the scope and nature of each community’s citizenship acquisition. Puerto Ricans, for instance, are citizens by birth regardless of whether they were born on the mainland or on the island of Puerto Rico. Cuban immigrants, as political refugees, enjoy the most favorable immigration policy of any country in the world and therefore have an expedited path to legal permanent residency and citizenship. The Mexican-origin population has a longer and more complex history in the United States, which began when Mexico ceded present-day states that comprise the southwestern United States in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. As a result, a small segment of the population was granted U.S. citizenship, another segment immigrated legally through family reunification provisions of immigration law,⁶ and yet another segment of the population gained legal permanent residency as a result of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. In addition to the large segment of second- and third-generation Mexican Americans, the remaining segment of the population consists of unauthorized immigrants, primarily from Mexico and Central American countries, who arrived after the 1980s. It therefore was sensible for earlier analyses of Latino politics to center on this ethnic approach.

In line with this research, Cristina Beltrán (2010) provides a contrarian view to the notion of a coherent, pan-ethnic Latino identity and political agenda. To make the case, she begins by exploring the Chicano and Puerto Rican movements of the 1960s and 1970s and argues that the visions of unity and pan-ethnic identity are temporal and primarily elite-driven ideas of movement leaders. She then criticizes the notion that the homogenization of Latino diversity is a necessary precondition for Latino empowerment, precisely because Latino elites “are unable to invoke the representative ‘we’ that sustains discussions of the ‘Latino vote’ and other markers of the pan-ethnic project” (16). Her critique is consistent with prior works that question the consequences of the interaction between internal heterogeneity and the salience of ethnicity (or pan-ethnic behavior) for Latinos as it relates to politics. In his seminal book Counting on the Latino Vote, Louis DeSipio asserts that “while the conditions for a politically salient ethnicity based on exclusion may exist, factors internal to the Latino populations may prevent them from challenging the U.S. political system in ethnic terms” (1996:10). This is not only true for Latinos, as one could both criticize and appreciate the homogenization of other groups based on race or place.

For example, political scientists have long used “the South” as a heuristic for political identity and political behavior primarily for whites living in the South. Why, after the many radical changes in the South from the Civil War, to civil rights, to the more recent migration from northern states and of unauthorized Latino immigrants, do political scientists and pundits make reference to the South as if there were a homogenized southern identity or tangible political behavior among voters from the South? One could similarly appreciate and criticize the homogenization of black identity and behavior. In the case of African Americans, the notion of linked fate as a black utility heuristic has demonstrated consistent and enduring effects on African American political behavior (Cohen 1999; Dawson 1994). In the case of Latinos, the “ethnic model” often privileges the presence of national-origin differences. Fraga et al. (2010) provide compelling evidence that pan-ethnic similarities may be more important at present than national origin differences. Based on extensive focus groups and preliminary data from the 2006 Latino National Survey, they find a noticeable increase in pan-ethnic identity and behavior in the last ten to fifteen years, with potential consequences for politics. Beltrán’s theory challenges this, but she draws on characterizations of Chicano identity from more than forty year ago that may have been replaced by new pan-ethnic identities. There is room for disagreement about the utility of a pan-ethnic focus, but my goal is not to surmise a particular intent among Latino elites to promote civic Latinidad, as Beltrán suggests, or to dwell on the social construction of ethnicity that accompanies the relatively new invented identity and term “Latino.” Instead, Mobilizing Opportunities allows for the possibility that Latino identity, taken on out of convenience or under duress, can acquire its own political reality for individuals, society, and the polity that can have very real consequences for shared Latino behavior. I acknowledge the diversity within the Latino population, but make the case that the uncertainty about the salience of ethnicity for Latinos has faded as the U.S. political system has consistently engaged Latinos as one ethnic group. Distinct from southern identity or linked fate among African Americans, Latinos have reacted to the system in identifiable ways both as an ethnic group and as selective subgroups of Latinos based on nativity and state contexts where they live. The analytical framework I provide captures pan-ethnic similarities and national-origin differences by focusing on when, where, and to whom these matter. Moreover, my state-centered approach moves beyond identity to highlight how state contexts are essential to understanding the patterns in mobilization not as an event but as processes. Once we conceptualize the potential for Latino political influence as a dynamic process, we can begin to more fully understand the “how” and “why” of Latino politics in the United States today.

A second prominent approach among scholars and pundits is less concerned with the utility (or lack thereof) of theories about a singular “Latino electorate.” Because it is more concerned with identifying instances when Latinos provide the margin of victory for particular races, the “pivotal vote” thesis implicitly critiques earlier approaches that privilege national-origin differences because it is premised on bloc voting and could be a demonstration of strong Latino identity. According to this approach, it is possible to determine the import of Latino voters if we can identify cases when the outcome of a particular election would have changed if no Latino had voted. Several analyses find that Latinos have limited to no effect on determining presidential elections at the state level and make the case that this largely explains their marginalization within presidential campaigns (de la Garza and DeSipio 1992, 1996, 1999, 2005). However, this approach is increasingly problematic for three reasons. First, this approach’s assumed bloc voting among Latinos neglects the fact that some of this may be driven by the composition of Latino population in many states. In earlier periods, the composition of the Latino population was dominated by one national origin group or another. However, there is now greater variation of national-origin Latino subgroups than once was the case. In some states, national-origin Latino groups that once constituted a majority or plurality of the state’s Latino population in 1990 witnessed a significant drop in their share by 2010. This can be attributed to some geographic dispersion and the influx of Latinos of other national origins. For example, in 1990, Puerto Ricans accounted for 49 percent of the Latino population in New York and 43 percent of New Jersey’s Latino population. Twenty years later, these proportions had dropped to 31 percent and 28 percent respectively. Similarly, Cuban Americans accounted for 43 percent of Florida’s Latino population in 1990, but only 29 percent in 2010. In eight of the ten states considered, the proportion of Mexican-origin population increased, but in Arizona and Texas, there was a slight increase in the non-Mexican-origin population. The increasing national-origin heterogeneity among state Latino population should not be assumed to be inconsequential. If there is similar voter behavior by this more diverse Latino electorate, why is this so? Is it because of efforts from within the community or exogenous pressures that lead to this common behavior?

The second reason why the “pivotal vote” approach is problematic is because of the unrealistic supposition that one could remove Latinos from election settings without impacting campaign dynamics. After all, candidate campaign strategies do not begin during the general election. They begin during the primary process, and the composition of the electorate helps determine which candidates decide to enter the race. One should not assume that the candidates in the general election would be the same if we hypothetically removed an entire segment of the electorate. Campaign dynamics therefore are responses that should not be assumed to hold constant when the composition of the electorate suddenly changes. Third, the “pivotal vote” approach to the study of Latino politics is static because it focuses on single election outcomes and fails to consider the many ways in which Latinos can impact the electoral calculus of campaigns, including transforming state contexts from competitive to one that advantages a particular party. The sole focus is on explaining a specific election and has nothing to do with change over time. In other words, this approach is too vested in the present by attempting to discern when Latino political behavior is salient without taking into account the process-oriented factors that explain how and why long-term political salience can be achieved.

The third approach to understanding Latino political influence, “demography is destiny,” is most aptly captured by Shaun Bowler and Gary Segura (2011) in their book The Future Is Ours: Minority Politics, Political Behavior and the Multiracial Era of American Politics. The authors focus on the political behavior of America’s racial and ethnic minorities, how this behavior manifests itself, and the likely partisan consequences. From values and beliefs to issue preferences, partisanship, and descriptive representation, the distinctiveness of American minorities, according to Segura and Bowler, is likely to have a long-term impact on national elections. “Taken together, the two critical factors of demography and the Obama electoral coalition appeared in 2008 to imply a possible Democratic realignment, as large and enduring as that which accompanied the Great Depression and New Deal and which dominated American politics for a generation” (Bowler and Segura 2011:4). The core of this approach hinges upon sheer demographic growth and Latinos eventually attaining particular endogenous and exogenous thresholds⁷ and becoming voters who are critical to winning coalitions.

There is an apparent chasm between the rhetoric of inevitable Latino influence (combined with African Americans and Asian Americans) and the less sanguine assessment of Latinos’ significance for national elections typical of the “pivotal vote” approach. The “demography is destiny” thesis focuses too much on population size as the source of eventual influence, whereas the “pivotal vote” approach relies on election outcomes and whether or not Latinos provided the margin necessary to win a particular election. In a sense, one is imprecise and future-oriented, and the other is excessively formulaic and overly concerned with the present. Neither approach is developmental by design, so neither can explain changes over time. In this work, I see...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1. State Contexts, Mobilization, and the Evolving Latino Electorate
• 2. Mobilization en Español: Spanish-Language Radio and the Reaction to HR 4437
• 3. Defensive Naturalization and the Opportunity to Mobilize
• 4. The Changing California Voter: A Case Study of Mobilizing Opportunities and Latino Participation over Time
• 5. Voice of the People: The Evolution and Effectiveness of Latino Voter Mobilization
• 6. The Evolving Latino Electorate and the Future of American Politics
• Notes
• References
• Index