WASHINGTON – A bipartisan Latino get-out-the-vote group asserted Tuesday that the Hispanic vote on Nov. 4 will have “a crucial impact” in close contests around the country, including the governor’s race in Arizona and the battle over the Senate in Colorado.
Two weeks before the mid-term elections, the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) highlighted races that it believes could be decided by Latino voters. NALEO says that the Latino share of registered voters in Arizona is 16 percent, larger than the 12 percent margin of victory for Republican Gov. Jan Brewer in 2010..
In the Arizona campaign, Republican state Treasurer Doug Ducey is barely edging out Democrat Fred DuVal in the campaign for the open governor’s chair. Another tight race in which NAELO believes Latinos could have an impact is the U.S. Senate battle in Colorado where U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner, a Republican, is running neck-and-neck with Sen. Mark Udall – some polls are so close they fall within the margin of error for either candidate.
Colorado’s other Democratic senator, Michael Bennett, “is senator today because of the strength of support he got from Latino voters,” said Arturo Vargas, NALEO’s executive director, “Udall’s prospects will rise and fall on the same.”
But it’s not clear how much actual leverage Latinos have in the campaign in Colorado, or in other close races.
Rothenberg Political Report deputy editor Nathan Gonzalez said Tuesday, ”it’s extremely difficult to isolate . . . one particular demographic in the most competitive and the closest races….If a race is close, I think you can point to any number of issues or ‘people-groups’ as being important factors.”
In other words, while the Latino vote certainly matters in 2014, it’s not likely to be make-or-break.
“When you look at the seats that are in play, both in the House and in the Senate, I think the opportunity for Latino voters is fairly muted,” Gonzalez said in a phone interview.
During a NALEO sponsored panel of Latino political activists Tuesday, participants touted the number of Latino candidates on ballots across the country, including 19 running for statewide executive offices in various states.
“We’ve got eight statewide Latinos elected now,” said Cristobal Alex, president of PAC Latino Victory Project, “We may have an additional eight if everything goes our way, if we turn out [on Election Day] in the right numbers, we may get up there so that we have a record number of Latinos elected statewide this year.”
On Capitol Hill, NALEO predicts Latinos members of the U.S. House could grow from 28 to 32.
But although the discussion focused on this year’s election, a vision of 2016 was not far from the thinking of those at the National Press Club event.
“I think we’ll have a very different conversation when we do the same panel as we gear up for the presidential election,” said Vargas, “when the Electoral College is at stake, when states like Texas and California and Illinois and New York and Arizona and New Mexico are all going to matter in terms of putting together a winning Electoral College strategy.”
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