{"id":20025,"date":"2020-03-18T05:26:19","date_gmt":"2020-03-18T05:26:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=20025"},"modified":"2020-03-21T16:31:38","modified_gmt":"2020-03-21T16:31:38","slug":"all-latinos-dont-vote-the-same-way-their-place-of-origin-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/all-latinos-dont-vote-the-same-way-their-place-of-origin-matters\/","title":{"rendered":"All Latinos don’t vote the same way \u2013 their place of origin matters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eliza Willis<\/a>, Grinnell College<\/a><\/em> and Janet A. Seiz<\/a>, Grinnell College<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Joe Biden won Florida\u2019s 2020 Democratic primary<\/a>, capturing a majority of the state\u2019s Latino voters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Polls have been tracking the Latino vote in Democratic presidential primaries, and many analysts are trying to predict which candidate Latinos might favor in November. Interest in Florida has been especially strong.<\/p>\n

Observers commonly speak of \u201cthe Latino vote\u201d as if Latinos make up a distinct and unified interest group. This both overstates and understates Latinos\u2019 uniqueness. Latinos are a highly diverse population, beginning with where they and their families are from. For many Latinos, political events that affect their places of origin significantly influence their electoral preferences.<\/p>\n

Given the uneven geographic distribution of Latino communities, these differences may be consequential in certain state elections, as seen most clearly in Florida, where Latinos make up 20% of the eligible electorate.<\/p>\n

Since Florida is an important swing state, these voters\u2019 choices can make a difference to national election outcomes.<\/p>\n

Breaking down the Latino vote<\/h2>\n

As a group, the nation\u2019s 32 million Latino potential voters<\/a> are somewhat more likely than non-Latinos to lean Democratic<\/a>. About 62% identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, while 34% affiliate with or lean to the Republicans.<\/p>\n

Their policy preferences align broadly with those of their parties, but the partisan gap tends to be smaller than among U.S. voters as a whole. In a 2019 Pew survey<\/a>, for example, 82% of Latino Democrats and 51% of Latino Republicans believed government \u201cshould do more to solve problems.\u201d Among non-Latinos, the corresponding figures were 79% and 22%.<\/p>\n

An important way in which Latino voters differ from non-Latinos, and vary among themselves, relates to where they or their forebears came from.<\/p>\n

Voters who identify as Latino vary in their places of origin. The ancestors of some lived in North America long before the westward expansion of the United States; Puerto Ricans became U.S. citizens after the Spanish-American War; and millions of others immigrated from nations throughout the Americas and the Caribbean.<\/p>\n

Mexican Americans are the largest group<\/a>, at about 60% of eligible Latino voters. Puerto Ricans come second, with 14%, followed by Cubans at 4%.<\/p>\n

Cuban Americans and Florida<\/h2>\n

In our research<\/a> on the recent wave of migrants from Central America, we highlighted the problems, from economic insecurity to the prevalence of violence, that motivated people to undertake the often-treacherous journey to the United States.<\/p>\n

Our present work examines how the voting preferences of some Latino migrants continue to be shaped by political events and conditions \u201cback home,\u201d even decades after leaving.<\/p>\n

The persistent power of the place once called home to shape electoral choices is most apparent among two groups, Cuban Americans and Puerto Ricans. Both have large communities in Florida, giving that state a unique demographic profile.<\/p>\n