Yesterday, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) stated that the best arguments to convince his Republican colleagues to support immigration reform were political in nature: “if we don’t do this, we can’t begin the conversation with our Hispanic voters, and all you have to do is the math. Do the math on the growth of the Hispanic voters in this country. So I try to appeal to the better angels but I also find more resonance in the other side of the argument,” referring to political and demographic trends.
In a development that should bolster Senator McCain’s appeals to his colleagues, New York Times polling and quantitative guru Nate Silver yesterday unveiled a new interactive tool and related analysis that explores the political impact of potential immigration reform and larger demographic changes on our nation’s future elections. Silver finds that, “population growth and changes in racial voting patterns will have much larger effects than how the current group of unauthorized immigrants is treated.”
In other words, instead of sole focus on how current undocumented immigrants may vote in several decades should immigration reform pass this year, the Republican Party should be mostly concerned with the demographic trends marching forward independent of immigration legislation – and questions about what motivates and appeals to these voters.
In addition to the Nate Silver’s interactive tool showing broader demographic trends, an America’s Voice Education Fund and Latino Decisions interactive map tracks the influence and importance of Latino Voters specifically. The tool, first released in June 2012 and updated with the results of the November elections, is an interactive version of the Latino electoral influence model and uses current polling data and demographic information to illustrate how the Latino vote could impact the future elections, allowing the user to make adjustments and view different scenarios.
According to Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America’s Voice:
The Republican Party’s handling of the immigration debate this year will determine whether the GOP has a chance to significantly improve their vote share among Latino voters and other growing shares of the electorate for whom immigration is often viewed as a litmus test issue. Will the GOP work to share credit by passing immigration reform? Or will the Party further tarnish its brand image by being more of a hindrance than a help to reform’s passage? The choice and consequences are clear – do they prefer the route of George W. Bush in the 2004 elections, or Mitt Romney in 2012?
Resources
- Nate Silver’s Interactive Tool, “Presidential Math: Demographics and Immigration Reform”
- Nate Silver’s Article, “How Immigration Reform and Demographics Could Change Presidential Math”
- Latino Decisions and America’s Voice Education Fund Interactive Latino Vote Map
