Immigration Is Not a Top Issue for Latino Voters
Much has been made of the fact that Latino voters are not particularly permissive when it comes to immigration. Whether it’s border security or English as a national language, Latinos seem to surprise some observers by taking a hard line in polls. Not only does this not surprise me, but it also obscures a more important and less-mentioned point: immigration is not high on the list of priorities for Latino voters.
The graphs above highlight the top six issues for American adults and Latino voters as recently surveyed by Hart Research and Greenberg Research. Among American adults, illegal immigration is now tied for second as the highest priority, only behind the war in Iraq. Meanwhile, as Latino voters ponder their congressional vote, the issues of jobs, education, the war in Iraq and Medicare/Social Security all appear to impact their decision process more than immigration. “We’re already here,” Latino voters seem to be saying. “We’ve got things more relevant to our present lives to worry about, like jobs that pay well and how to educate our kids.”
Over the weekend, I’ll discuss why I think this means Democrats in 2006 should not invest too much energy using the immigration issue to win back the Latinos we lost to George W. Bush in 2004. If Republicans want to form a circular firing squad, we should let them. And no question immigration has become very important to white voters. But I’m not sure how many new Latino voters we’re going to make because of the immigration issue, which seems to be NDN’s goal. The uncertainty over the potential for new voters just reinforces why we need to talk to Latinos who are already voters about the issues they care about. Immigration isn’t really one of them.
