Young Latino Voters

I fully accept the critique we often see, in comments here and elsewhere, that talking about the “Latino” vote is pretty meaningless. What do Cubans in Miami, fifth generation Mexican-Americans in South Texas, and Salvadorans in Los Angeles have in common? Not much. It’s not very useful. And yet, we are limited by America’s odd racial categorization. We can transcend that, but it’s the media and they don’t like to work hard. So the stories like this one about young Latino voters going overwhelmingly for Democrats are pretty limited. Nonetheless, at a moment when pundits are constantly talking about Latinos moving to the Republicans, it’s worth noting that young people across race hate Republicans.

The NBC News Exit Poll found that 68% of Latino voters under 30 voted for a Democratic House candidate on Election Day, even though only 43% of them identify as a Democrat. Thirty percent of young Latino voters favored the Republican House candidate.

When it comes to party identification, 37% of young Latino voters identify as independent and 20% identify as Republican, according to NBC News exit polls. Additionally, 41% of young Latino voters identify as liberal, while 34% identify as moderate and 25% as conservative.

The NBC News Exit Poll also echoed some analysis from CIRCLE, the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University, which studies young voters.

Young Latino voters under 30, alongside young Black voters, showed stronger support for Democrats on Election Day compared to young white voters, according to the analysis by CIRCLE. Sixty-eight percent of Latino youth and 89% of Black youth voted for a Democratic House candidate. Among white young voters, the vote was 58% for Democrats.

So sure, lots of young white people are still racists who love racism, but even there it’s a minority. It’s still a good long-term sign for Democrats.