Latinos Growing In Electoral Importance

It's taken awhile, partly because so many recent immigrants are young, partly because so many are recent citizens, and partly because so many older Latinos have been on the fringes on mainstream American life for so long. But it looks like Latinos are finally voting at levels that can truly influence elections, at least in the Southwest. That should have the salutory effect of making xenophobic pitches that still work in the South all but inoperative in the Southwest, the same way that the Voting Rights Act, and heavier black voting, greatly-modified the campaign behavior of Southern politicians:

One reason California didn't follow national trends on Tuesday? Latinos.

Driving much of the success — and distancing the state from the national GOP tide, according to exit polls — was a surge in Latino voters. They made up 22% of the California voter pool, a record tally that mortally wounded many Republicans.

...Jerry Brown won Latinos 73-18 in the governor's race.

In Colorado, Sen. Michael Bennet survived his first election by less than 10,000 votes. And the state's growing Latino population (now at 12 percent of all voters) provided the margin.

...In Nevada, Sen. Harry Reid was much maligned by critics for starkly stating that "I don't know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican." Yet by starkly laying out the stakes, Reid cleaned up with Latinos. First of all, he kept their turnout stead -- Latinos were 15 percent of the electorate in 2008 and in 2010. That in itself was a remarkable achievement, given that in most of the country, non-whites saw steep dropoffs in turnout. Perhaps Sharrrrron Angle's openly racist campaign wasn't a great idea, as Jon Ralston notes:

So many Hispanics turned out that the numbers defied the most optimistic estimates of the Reid folks. Even the Asian-looking ones must have gone to the polls. Hispanics made up about the same percentage of the electorate as they did in 2008, according to preliminary analysis and exit polls — 15 percent. Angle took a calculated — and, yes, shameful — risk by airing ads that were decried as racist and set off waves of revulsion in the Hispanic community. She hoped to get independent votes, but she never counted on dramatically improving Hispanic turnout. A fitting reward, I’d say.

Even in Arizona, Latinos are wising up. In 2004, John McCain got 74 percent of the Latino vote against marginal opposition. In 2010, McCain got 40 percent, against equally marginal opposition. In the governor's race, Latinos gave victorious GOP governor Jan Brewer just 28 percent of the vote. All of that after consistently giving Arizona Republicans 40% of the vote over the years.

...The sleeping giant is awake