Hispanic Voting Registration Drops As Population Grows

The Dallas Morning News reports:

As the fastest-growing population group in the United States over the past decade, Latinos seemed poised to have a huge impact on the 2012 presidential and congressional campaigns.

Why then, political experts and demographers wondered, had the number of Latino voters declined significantly from 2009 to 2010? According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey, the number of Hispanic registered voters fell from 11.6 million in 2008 — a presidential election year — to 10.9 million in 2010, when congressional races led the ballot in many states.

Experts had expected 11 million to 12 million Latino voters to visit the polls in November. But the survey cast serious doubts on that. Some wondered whether the economy had forced Latinos to move to find work. Others said the drop was strictly cyclical.

While voter registration typically slips in nonpresidential years, some experts say the scope of the 2010 declines was completely unexpected at a time when the Hispanic population in the United States continued to soar.

From 2000 to 2010, the number of Hispanics in the United States jumped from 35.3 million to 50.5 million, a growth rate of 43 percent. Hispanics made up 16 percent of the U.S. population in 2010 and 37.6 percent in California.

But even as California's Hispanic population grew, the number of Hispanic voters dropped — from 3.3 million in 2008 to 3 million in 2010.

The establishment media tells you how important Hispanics will be in the 2012 Presidential race: are you so you?