Presumption No. 1: Latinos who vote generally speak English, not Spanish, most of the time.
Presumption No. 2: Females in Latino families hold little political sway.
Presumption No. 3: If White Catholics are disproportionately enrolled as Republicans, the same must be true of Latino Catholics.
Fallacies all, according to scholars who track both the rising ranks of Latinos living in the United States — a group whose growth is outpacing all others — and what they describe as myth-making over how that growing population is reflected at the ballot box.
Thus far, the population surge alone hardly tells the full story, scholars said, adding that roughly 65 percent of eligible Latino voters actually register to vote, compared to roughly 75 percent each for eligible Black and White voters and 50 percent for Asians.
“‘Latinos are going to be a force to be reckoned with’ is what you hear in relation to growth of the Latino population. Given their numbers in some areas, that growth is explosive. The reality is much more nuanced than that … In the 2012 election, if we conflate the size of the population with the potential to vote, we’ll be on the wrong side of the prediction,” said Dr. J. Salvador Peralta, a University of West Georgia political scientist whose teaching and research focuses on, among other areas, immigration policy, legislative development and the impact of redistricting on Latinos in the South.
Particularly in the rural South, Peralta added, Latinos do not reside in high enough concentrations to tip the ballot one way or the other.
