Not all Latinos pray alike. Latinos are not all Catholics. And, as seen in the above graph, Democrats are losing non-Catholic Latinos.

In the Washington Post, Sonya Geis reports on the growing number of Latinos in the evangelical movement:

Thirty years ago, about 90 percent of Latinos in the United States were Catholic, sociologists estimate. Today that number is about 70 percent, and it remains steady only because of high birth rates and new immigrants filling the pews. Most other Latino Americans — 9.5 million of them — are Protestant, usually Pentecostal or another evangelical denomination. Their numbers are fed by the conversion of second- and third-generation immigrants, whose families become more likely to convert the longer they are in the United States.

The Pew Hispanic Center attached some numbers to the effect this trend had on the presidential campaign of John Kerry in 2004:

Data from the combined state exit polls suggests that religion may have played a role in President Bush’s greater success with Hispanic voters in 2004 compared to 2000…Hispanic Protestants, who are mostly evangelicals rather than members of mainline Protestant denominations, made up 25 percent of the Latino vote in 2000 but four years later their share was up to 32 percent, according to the 51 state polls conducted during those elections. In addition, this segment of the Latino electorate tilted more heavily for Bush in 2004, giving him 56 percent of their votes compared to 44 percent in 2000. Thus, Hispanic Protestants were both a growing and increasingly pro-Republican constituency between the two elections. Meanwhile, Bush’s share of the Hispanic Catholic vote held steady at 33 percent in the state exit polls. The split between Latino Protestants and Catholics (23 percent) was larger than in the white vote in which 68 percent of Protestants and 56 percent of Catholics voted for Bush.

In other words, more Latinos are becoming Protestant and Protestant Latinos are becoming more likely to vote for Republicans. Yet the fact that the partisan gap between white Protestant and Catholics is not as great as the partisan gap between Latino Protestant and Catholics suggests that Democrats do not have to resign themselves to this trend. Reinforcing the notion that Democrats can do better is the finding that immigrants are not coming over Protestant at a higher rate, but rather that second-generation and later Latinos are converting. If Democrats speak to the specific concerns and values of the sons and daughters of Latino immigrants – which will vary depending on factors like country of origin and where they live today – then there will be no reason a Latino speaking in tongues will need to vote Republican.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 30th, 2006 at 11:36 am and is filed under Blog, Latino Vote, US Presidential. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.