Election 2008: What’s At Stake?

Latino population distribution in 2000. The population has grown since then. (Wikipedia image)
The decline in Latino support for Republican candidates has some in the party worried. With demographic trends showing an increasingly diverse country, any party that fails to appeal to minorities is going to have trouble winning elections.
For the GOP, Florida is the state [...]

[Read more →]

Here’s a run-down of the races we were watching. In some, the immigration issue played a role—or failed to; in others, immigrant voters’ voices were heard. More details to come later on some of the major stories. (All results from NYTimes.com, unless linked elsewhere.)

Texas 22: Republican Pete Olson beat Democratic incumbent Rep. Nick Lampson, [...]

[Read more →]

The networks and newspapers have called the election for Sen. Barack Obama, who won a historic victory with more than 300 electoral votes.
The immigrant vote might have played a role in netting him a handful of decisive states. The race was close in Virginia, and large Latino populations were leaning toward Obama in Nevada, [...]

[Read more →]

Two days before the election, the immigration issue and/or immigrant voters are playing a big role in a handful of Congressional races. Here’s what we’re watching:

Texas 22: Democrat Nick Lampson hopes to fend off a challenge from Republican Pete Olson with the help of South Asian voters. A Zogby poll has the Republican substantially ahead, [...]

[Read more →]

As Rep. Mario and Lincoln Diaz-Balart campaigns come down to the wire in the Miami area, all eyes are on the non-Cuban Latinos who might swing the races to the Democrats for the first time in decades.
Mother Jones has posted a video that was part of the Elizabeth Méndez Berry and Don Duncan’s News [...]

[Read more →]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAC9ucoO-kQ

As News 21 discovered last summer, the long-running Diaz-Balart dynasty seems to be coming to an end. Mario and Lincoln Diaz-Balart, both conservative Republicans, have held their South Florida Congressional seats for years, largely on the basis of their tough-on-Cuba stance.
The brothers are losing their appeal, however, as their constituencies come to be dominated [...]

[Read more →]

Check out this map from The New Republic, which examines the nuance of the Latino vote in several swing states.
“Latinos cannot be treated as a monolithic subgroup,” says Nate Silver. Beyond the obvious fact that Cubans in Florida are very different from Mexicans in Nevada, Silver points out that, although New Mexico is more [...]

[Read more →]

Many voters who watched the presidential debate last night were likely confused by John McCain’s reference to the Colombia Free Trade Agreement, which Barack Obama opposes. For most Americans, this is a minor issue of little to no concern. But former News 21 advisor John Judis points out that Colombians are a growing constituency in [...]

[Read more →]

Colorado 2008 = Florida 2000?
The Colorado Independent wonders if Colorado will take the crown as the poster child for election day dysfunction this year, pointing to potential problems with a new statewide voter database system and dealing with huge numbers of new voters who have to wade through with the longest ballot in the country.
The [...]

[Read more →]

The presidential campaigns and the press have focused a good deal of energy on Latino voters, especially in western states where they could pay a pivotal role. But what about our second largest group of immigrants?
Asians make up 5 percent of the United States. While the largest Asian populations are in the solid Democratic [...]

[Read more →]