Note: This report is part of the series titled “Voting Wars – Rights | Power | Privilege,” produced by the Carnegie-Knight News21 initiative, a national investigative reporting project by top college journalism students across the country. The project is led by two award-winning professional journalists – former Washington Post editor Leonard Downie, Jr., and Jacqueline Petchel, former investigative editor at major newspapers and television stations in Houston, Miami and Minneapolis. The program is headquartered at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.
By Alejandra Armstrong, Sami Edge, Courtney Columbus and Emily L. Mahoney, News21
Andrea Montes will turn 18 just weeks before the Nov. 8 election, and the Beloit resident plans to vote for the first time.
She said she had always planned to exercise that right, but added that an incident in April made clear just how important it was to cast her ballot. Montes, a Beloit Memorial High School student, was playing in a high school soccer game in Elkhorn when it turned ugly. Fans of the opposing team began yelling “Trump ’16” and “Build that wall!” at her Latina teammates, she said.
“The candidates this election aren’t the best,” Montes said. “But I feel like if I don’t vote, it means that I’m OK with Donald Trump leading the country. And I’m not. People of color need to be voting this election.”
It’s unclear, though, whether Latinos will turn out in Wisconsin and elsewhere. If they do, they have tremendous potential to affect the outcome. But disenchantment and language differences create barriers.
Hispanic Vote a ‘Sleeping Giant’?
Wisconsin’s Latino population is 6.4%, roughly 42% of whom are eligible to vote. Benjamin Marquez, a political science professor at UW-Madison, described Wisconsin as a “frontier state” because of the influx in Latino population. In the 10 years after 2000, Wisconsin’s Latino population grew 74%, according to U.S. Census data.
Nationally, Latinos have jumped from 4% of the country’s population in 1965 to nearly 20% in 2015, according to the Pew Research Center. Today, there are more than 55 million Latinos in the United States, and an estimated 27.3 million will be eligible to vote in November.
During the past few presidential elections, national media began to speculate on the effect of the Latino electorate and even gave it the moniker “the sleeping giant.” But every year, despite increasing potential, it seemed that giant hadn’t yet awakened.
Indicators suggest 2016 could be the year: Latinos have registered to vote at increasing rates, and many Latino voters indicated they’re more interested in this election — motivated by issues such as the economy and immigration and by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s anti-immigration stance. One expert said he expects a “mad frenzy” of voter registration leading up to the election.
But a longstanding gap remains between Latinos who are eligible to vote and those who will. The National Association of Latino Elected Officials projects 13.1 million Latino voters will cast ballots this November, a 17% increase from the last presidential election but still just under half of those eligible.
“Harsh rhetoric that has been spewed by Donald Trump, right out of the gate, comparing Mexicans to rapists and murderers, could help galvanize the Latino vote to vote against him,” said Joseph Garcia, director of the Latino policy center for the Morrison Institute for Public Policy at Arizona State University.
The Beloit soccer incident, which made national headlines, is exactly the kind of experience experts say might help galvanize the Latino electorate to vote this November. But at the same time, several factors may keep Latinos away — or at least prevent the electorate from reaching its full potential — this November.
More than 60% of the nation’s Latinos have a high school education or less. And almost a quarter live in poverty. Voters who are young, poor and less educated don’t vote in large numbers, Garcia said.
In addition, candidates have largely neglected this segment of the population. States have implemented new voting restrictions, creating barriers for both registration and voting. And millennials, who tend to stay away from the polls, make up nearly half the eligible Latino electorate.
No one can say for certain when Latino voter turnout will surge, but Garcia said eventually, it will.
“(This election) will be the last gasp when it comes to how you can totally disregard an entire ethnic group of voters,” Garcia told News21.
Latinos’ Critical Role in the Economy
Last Feb. 18, protesters crowded around the Wisconsin Capitol in Madison during a movement they called “Dia Sin Latinos” — a day without Latinos.
Latino business owners, employees and advocates were protesting two bills — one of which would prevent voters from using a city-issued ID to vote. Organizers of the movement encouraged Latinos to skip work and join the crowd at the Capitol or stay home to prove how much the state’s economy relies on Latino workers.
Marquez, the UW-Madison political scientist, called the protest a success based on the sheer size of the rally. An estimated 20,000 people showed up, according to WMTV, the NBC affiliate in Madison.
Latinos make up about 16% of the American workforce, according to statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. They hold more jobs in agriculture, construction and maintenance than any other group.
Joseph Statz, an owner of the Statz Bros dairy farm in Sun Prairie, said his 4,000-cow milking operation couldn’t exist without Latino workers. His 110 employees milk, mix feed, scrape stalls and lay fresh bedding for the cows. At least two-thirds of his workers are Latino, he said.
“They’re the ones who come and apply for the jobs,” Statz told News21. “It would be hard for a lot of people to exist if it wasn’t for them. We need to help them — whatever it’s going to take to get them to stay.”
Earnings Disparity
Hispanics, however, earn less than other workers. Over a 12-month period, Hispanic workers earned about $10,400 less than full-time workers in other racial groups, according to a 2013 report by the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee.
And that may speak to the need for Latinos to exercise their voice in the political spectrum.
Latinos have repeatedly cited economic matters as the most important issue when it comes to voting. For example, more than 71% of Latino voters said they want the next president to support increasing the minimum wage from $7.25 to $15, according to a February poll among 1,200 voters conducted by Noticias Univision and The Washington Post.
Experts predict tight races in states such as Florida, Nevada and Colorado this November. According to Pew numbers, Latino voters make up at least 15% of the electorate in those three battleground states — so Latino turnout could prove the strength of the voting bloc there.
Experts: Cynicism, Unfamiliarity Hold Down Vote
Alma Marquez, founder and president of a communications and public affairs firm that focuses on education-related issues and political and civic engagement, said Latinos are often portrayed as apathetic because of their low voter turnout.
But some Latino voters and experts said it’s not apathy: They do care about politics and understand the importance of civic engagement. They said other factors keep Latinos away from the polls, including cynicism, unfamiliarity with voting and language barriers.
“Many of the community members feel as though they’re not really viewed as Americans,” Marquez said. “And so there’s this logic, ‘If I’m not really viewed as American or respected as American, then why should I (vote)?’ ”
Other Latino voters, like Sabino Nañez, 34, said Latinos will vote “when they feel like they are first-class citizens” instead of third-class citizens.
The Milwaukee resident said when the U.S. Supreme Court blocked President Barack Obama’s expansion of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and Deferred Action for Parental Accountability in June — which would have given parents of U.S citizens legal presence — it discouraged the Latino community even more.
David Castorena told News21 that disillusionment will keep him from voting. The 24-year-old Guadalupe, AZ, native voted for Obama in 2012, but he said he won’t vote in this election.
“I just don’t think my vote matters,” he said. “Trump is going to win anyway.”
Language also can be a barrier. About 15% of Latinos speak limited English, according to U.S. Census data. Federal law, however, requires communities to provide bilingual election materials and allow translators at the polls if (among other criteria) limited-English speakers make up more than 5% of a community’s population.
New Laws Pose New Problems
Some legislative requirements for voter registration and photo voter identification at the polls also may limit Latino voting.
Twenty states have approved or implemented new voting restrictions since 2012, according to a News21 analysis, and this may make it harder for some 875,000 Latinos to vote this year, according to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. Many of these policy changes have been challenged in court, and some have been overturned, creating uncertainty over what rules will be in place by November.
“Latinos are one of these groups hit the hardest by (the) strongest voter ID laws,” said Stella Rouse, associate professor and director of the Center for American Politics and Citizenship at the University of Maryland.
“These laws target people who don’t speak the native language, don’t have the resources, don’t have the proper ID, who are poor (and) don’t have the transportation to get that ID,” she explained. “Latinos, just like African-Americans, the elderly, the rural communities, fit into those groups that really create obstacles for voting.”
Across the United States, 13% of African-Americans and 10% of Hispanics do not have proper photo ID, while only 5% of whites lack the proper ID, according to Project Vote, a nonpartisan, nonprofit voter advocacy organization.
Latinos Poised to be Majority
Census population projections suggest that in 2044, the United States will become a majority-minority nation, with Latinos making up almost a quarter of the entire population.
Montes, the 17-year-old Beloit soccer player, is just one of the 3.2 million Latinos who have, or will, turn 18 in time to cast their first ballots in the 2016 election, according to Pew numbers. She is the face of the future Latino voter.
Montes is U.S.-born; only a quarter of the Latino electorate is foreign-born. Montes’s father came to America from Guanajuato, Mexico, as a teen looking for work. He later brought his wife to Beloit, where they raised Montes and her older brother and sister.
Her father became a citizen six years ago, and her mother followed suit two years later.
And Montes is eager to vote.
Pamela Ortega contributed to this report.
The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism distributed and contributed to this report. The Center is a nonprofit and nonpartisan news organization that provides its content free to Wisconsin news media and to others granted access. It collaborates with Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television, the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication and news media nationwide. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by the Center do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.