Still, if 18% of Latinos said that moral values were their top concern in 2004—a high-water-mark year for the relevance of moral values—82% cited some other issue as their top concern, such as the economy, the war on terror, the war in Iraq, education, or health care. In the 2012 election, by contrast, despite President Obama’s very public stance on both abortion and, more surprisingly, marriage equality for gays and lesbians, he polled almost three-quarters of the Latino vote (71% in the national exit poll, 75% in the Latino Decisions election eve poll). So what can we say about religion and social issues politics among Latinos?
FIGURE 3.9What Latino Voters Understand Politics to Be About
In December 2011, as part of the Latino Decisions–ImpreMedia tracking poll of Latino registered voters, we carried out an extensive study on the topic of religion and moral values among Latinos. The attention that moral values received in past elections, the claims among Republicans that religiosity was the GOP’s bridge to the Latino electorate, and the prospect of the first Mormon presidential nominee brought some urgency to the question of whether and how Latinos would bring their religious beliefs to the polls in 2012.
Latino Decisions asked the following question: “Which statement comes closest to your view: ‘Politics is more about economic issues, such as jobs, taxes, gas prices, and the minimum wage,’ or ‘Politics is more about moral issues such as abortion, family values, and same-sex marriage.’” We asked, in other words, what politics was about to our Latino respondents. To avoid making the question a leading one, we randomized the order in which respondents heard the two statements. An overwhelming majority of Latino respondents—75% to be exact—said that politics is more about the economic issues in their daily lives than about moral issues such as same-sex marriage (14%). Although another 7% said that politics is about both areas, it is hard to escape the initial conclusion that so-called values issues do not predominate in the minds of Latino registered voters.
This conclusion, however, may not be so obvious. Latinos are indeed a religious group. According to our data, 46% of Latino registered voters attend church every week, while the American National Election Study estimates that just 23% of all Americans were weekly churchgoers in 2008. Further, 60% of Latino voters told us that religion provides “quite a bit” of guidance in their daily lives. Among foreign-born, naturalized citizens, we found an even higher rate of church attendance and religiosity. Yet despite this commitment to religion, a majority of Latino registered voters in December 2011 said that religion would have no impact on their vote in 2012. Even among Latinos who attend church every week, 45% said that it would have no impact on their vote compared to 32% who said that it would have a big impact.
One of the avenues through which religion and moral values often shape or influence politics is the pulpit. Politicians often make direct appeals on Sunday and engage in very public demonstrations of religiosity, and pastors and preachers may reinforce these messages in the following weeks. Ministers have been pivotal on both the right (witness the religious mobilization around anti–gay marriage initiatives) and the left, as best exemplified by the historic role of the black church in African American voter turnout.
Yet Latino registered voters clearly reject this overt connection between religion and politics. When asked if religious leaders should tell their members which candidates to support, 82% said no and just 15% said yes. Even among Latinos who described themselves as born-again Christians, three-quarters did not want their pastors talking about politics.
Perhaps more importantly, when asked if politicians with strong religious beliefs should rely on their beliefs to guide their decisions in governing, 72% of Latinos said no and 19% said yes. And on this question as well, two-thirds of Latino born-again Christians were still opposed to government officials being guided by religion. This is a stark finding given the overwhelming prevailing norm in US politics regarding politicians and their faith. Recall President Bush, in a debate, answering, “Jesus Christ,” when asked which philosopher had most deeply influenced him. Think of the endless handwringing in the 2008 primary season over President Obama’s minister, Jeremiah Wright, or the widespread suspicion in some quarters that Obama was secretly a Muslim. Most Latino voters just wish politicians would keep this sort of concern to themselves.
FIGURE 3.10Religious Leaders Should Tell their Members which Candidates to Support
FIGURE 3.11Politicians with Strong Religious Convictions Should Rely on their Beliefs to Guide their Decisions in Government
TABLE 3.1Opinions on Whether Politics Is About Economic Issues or Moral Issues, by Respondent Characteristics
The split between Latino voters who said that politics is more about economic issues such as jobs, taxes, gas prices, and minimum wage (75%) and those who said that politics is more about moral issues such as abortion, family values, and same-sex marriage (14%) holds across all meaningful demographic groups within the Latino electorate. Weekly churchgoers told us by better than five-to-one that politics is not about moral issues. Likewise, around three-quarters of both self-described born-again Christians and those for whom religion provides “a great deal” of personal guidance were convinced that politics is more about economic policy issues than moral values.
Though Latinos are often religious—and demonstrably more so than other Americans—religion plays a fundamentally different role in Latino politics than in the politics of whites and African Americans. The claim that religiosity is an obvious potential source of GOP outreach to Latinos is entirely based on assumption. Though the claim lacks an empirical foundation, it has become, as it were, an article of Republican faith. This is not to say that religion, religious belief, and religious organizations play no role in the political lives of Latinos; clearly there are some relationships.9 But the model for how religion shapes the political beliefs and actions of American voters is not smoothly transferred across racial and ethnic boundaries.
ABORTION AND LGBT RIGHTS
Of course, to say that religion does not have the same effect on Latino politics as it does on white and African American politics is not to say that so-called values issues are irrelevant to this part of the electorate. It remains entirely plausible that Latino tradition and culture have given rise to wildly different views of abortion and homosexuality than those held by other Americans.
No such distinction exists, however, with respect to LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) rights. Latinos are not significantly more conservative on gay rights than their non-Hispanic fellow citizens. In November 2011, a Univision News–Latino Decisions poll found that a plurality of all Latino registered voters (43%) favored same-sex marriage equality and another 17% favored civil union recognition. Less than one-quarter of respondents opposed government recognition of same-sex relationships. More recently, a Pew Study found majority support, 52% versus 34%, for same-sex marriage rights.10 Indeed, the 2008 American National Election Study showed that Latino support for marriage equality (43.2%) exceeded that of non-Hispanic whites (39.6%); that Latino support for the right of gays to adopt children (53.3%) was marginally higher than among non-Hispanic whites (52.5%); and that Latino support for nondiscrimination protection for gays (71.3%), while slightly lower than among whites (75.5%), was still espoused by a supermajority. None of these findings suggest that Latinos’ opinions on gay and lesbian rights deviate significantly from their overall liberalism; nor do they imply an opportunity for Republican outreach.
Abortion is different. Every measure of opinion on reproductive choice does suggest that Latinos are more conservative on this issue than non-Hispanic whites. The difference is less significant, however, than generally assumed. In the 2008 ANES, 39.5% of non-Hispanic whites favored broad abortion rights; the comparable number among Latinos was 33.1%. Similarly, while 46.6% of whites supported choice in instances of rape or incest or when the life of the mother is in danger, the comparable figure for Latinos was 44%. In short, while Latinos appear to be marginally more conservati
ve than whites on the issue of reproductive choice, the difference hardly seems sizable.
Perhaps most damaging to the idea that social conservatism is a bridge from Latinos to a more conservative or Republican identity is the persistent lack of interest in these issues shown by Latino registered voters themselves. Polls of Latino voters that ask respondents to identify the issues most important to them generally find that these voters pay little attention to gay rights and abortion. When Latino Decisions has asked registered Latino voters about the issues that matter most to them when they vote, we have never polled more than 3% for all social issues—abortion, marriage equality, and the like—combined.
Claims and counterclaims regarding Latino policy preferences are built on two stereotypical ideas about Latinos, both incorrect. The first is that Latinos have evolved toward Democratic partisanship by accident, that they are insufficiently informed, and that their policy preferences are inconsistent with their voting behavior. The second idea is that Latinos are so traditionalist and religious that a proper Republican outreach campaign would swing a large number of them into the GOP camp. Neither of these claims is true.
Despite a strong commitment to the norm of self-reliance, Latino registered voters have a generally positive and activist view of government. This position is not unanimously held, by any stretch. But it is fair to say that generally progressive views of government—and orientations toward government—are held by about two-thirds of all Latino voters.
Though churchgoing, Latinos see religion as playing a decidedly different role in politics than do their fellow citizens of other racial and ethnic groups. Latinos do not want ministers involved in politics, do not want politicians relying on religion to shape policy, and generally think that politics should be about bread-and-butter issues rather than so-called morals issues.
These findings do not close off the possibility that there is considerable room for GOP growth among the Latino electorate. There certainly is. George W. Bush’s 40% showing in 2004 made it clear that not all Latinos are liberals and that a fair share can be persuaded to come over to the GOP side, especially if the Republican Party removes a couple of policy platforms that are truly toxic to their chances of making gains with Latino voters (the subject of later chapters).
But in the short term there are limits to GOP growth among Latinos, who look to be a center-left constituency for the foreseeable future.
* Portions of this chapter appeared in earlier form in Gary M. Segura, “Latino Public Opinion and Realigning the American Electorate,” Daedalus 141, no. 4 (Fall 2012): 98–113.
Chapter 4
NOW YOU SEE US, NOW YOU DON’T: THE IMPLICATIONS OF POLITICAL PARTICIPATION LAGGING POPULATION GROWTH
With Sylvia Manzano and Adrian Pantoja
Somewhere between 11.2 million and 12.2 million Latinos voted in the November 2012 election.1 That we don’t know for sure is no surprise; not all states keep records of the race and ethnicity of voters, so our own estimates are derived from those jurisdictions where we do have this information, as well as from analysis of the Current Population Survey (CPS) data, exit polls, voter registration changes by location, and other data.
About half of all the Latinos who could have voted in 2012 did not—that is, among the eligible population, Latino voter turnout is hovering around 50%. According to the 2010 CPS, the voter registration rate is 68.2% (about ten points less than the rate for non-Hispanic whites and African Americans), and the turnout of registered Latino voters is about 70% (again, about ten points less than for others). Of course, this rate fluctuates by election.
A number of groups have performed heroically in registering Latino voters. Early in the Chicano rights period of the 1960s and 1970s, the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project led the way. Since then, other groups, including Mi Familia Vota and Voto Latino, have joined the effort, and multifaceted civil rights organizations, like the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), have participated as well. Even Spanish-language media participates in the widely recognized Ya Es Hora campaign. In addition, many state and local groups have joined in this work.
Registering any group of voters is hard work, and the task is complicated by how rapidly the Latino population and citizenry are growing. By the time 1,000 new voters are registered, there may be 2,000 more waiting. Under-registration leads to under-turnout, the effects of which are easy to identify—Latinos project significantly less political power than their numbers might otherwise suggest—they swing fewer elections, hold fewer seats, and grab the policy attention of fewer elected officials.
Sidney Verba and his colleagues have offered three explanations for why people are driven to participate in politics: they have the resources to participate, they are recruited into politics, or they have some psychological engagement with politics.2 These reasons for political participation may help us begin to understand why Latino participation in electoral politics is relatively low. Because it requires time, attention, cognitive resources, and money, politics is a luxury that ranks well below more basic needs in the hierarchy of concerns of those with scant resources. Not surprisingly, then, political scientists have long found that those with fewer resources, regardless of race, are less likely to participate—and be influential—in politics. Working-class whites, for example, vote less frequently than well-to-do whites, more highly educated individuals vote more than less educated people, and so on.
The work on minority voters echoes this long-held finding, with a caveat. That is, most work on the political behavior of African Americans and Hispanics repeatedly identifies resource constraints as the principal individual-level factor in undermining minority electoral strength.3 African Americans have closed the gap primarily to the extent that they have used racial identity as an alternative resource.4 That is, African Americans overperform relative to their resources, but overall relatively lower incomes and educational achievement levels—the product of generations of discrimination, unequal opportunity, and ongoing manifestations of each—have significantly disadvantaged African Americans and Hispanics in the electoral arena.
Later in this chapter, we discuss the six focus groups conducted by Latino Decisions in Houston, Los Angeles, and Fresno to get some insight into Latino nonparticipation in electoral politics. Participating in these groups were a variety of Latino Americans who either stopped participating in our electoral system or never started at all. For several different reasons, each expressed significant doubts about electoral participation. For example, Rafael, a middle-aged man from Houston,5 is not registered to vote and, as will soon become evident, is not a fan of the US political system. Anita, a smart and surprisingly informed participant in our study who lives in California, is the daughter of a political family and is registered to vote, but has lost interest in the system. Each illustrates some of the many challenges faced by Latino leaders in mobilizing higher electoral involvement.
We begin by focusing on four factors that we believe are critical to Latino under-registration and lower voter turnout: citizenship and nativity; age; socioeconomic status, including income and education; and mobilization efforts by parties and candidates. We show that those with resources—time, information, cognitive skills, and motivation—are more likely to get registered and to vote. Then we turn our attention to the more social and psychological determinants of political participation, including group identity.
MEANS, MOTIVATION, AND OPPORTUNITY—HOW (LIMITED) RESOURCES LIMIT LATINO ELECTORAL PARTICIPATION
The demographic circumstances of Latinos are unique. Noncitizens generally cannot vote,6 and more than one-third of all Latino adults in the United States are not US citizens (either because they have not met the requirements or because they have chosen not to naturalize, for a variety of possible reasons).
Noncitizenship is certainly a huge and obvious barrier to electoral strength, but even foreign birth among citizens can undermine Latino political strength. Foreign-born citizens—naturalized immigrants—generally come t
o the United States with only limited familiarity with the US political system, its key players, and US political history. Unlike those attending K–12 school in this country, naturalized citizens begin their engagement with the US political system as adults with almost no background information. Politically active people in the United States are familiar with a host of associations and patterns that are new—if not unknown—to the immigrant. Not knowing, for example, that Social Security is identified with Democrats and tax-cutting with Republicans—to say nothing of the civics-book rules governing our system—makes it much harder for the foreign-born citizen to acquire a party identification, prioritize issues, and choose candidates. The knowledge that most Americans have accumulated over a lifetime of school, news, conversations, and family socialization is knowledge that they can take for granted, but it must be learned wholly new by adult immigrants, for whom the costs of doing so can reduce political participation.
For a long time naturalized citizens were significantly less likely to register and vote than US-born citizens.7 More recently, the politicization of immigration has motivated a wave of “political” naturalizations and higher voter turnout.8 But the costs of political participation—the costs of learning an entirely new political system—remain high for adult immigrants.
A second demographic obstacle, one less visible, is the age distribution. Young people generally vote less, and Latinos are very young. Although many Latinos over the age of eighteen are foreign-born, the latest census found that about 93% of those under eighteen are US-born. That means that very young Latinos are heavily represented in the citizen population and will soon enough become eligible to vote. Using Census Bureau population numbers, we estimate that in each month of the year 2014 approximately 73,000 Latino citizens will turn eighteen and enter the eligible electorate.
Latino America: How America's Most Dynamic Population is Poised to Transform the Politics of the Nation Page 5
