The rising tide of Latino voters in U.S. elections isn't going away anytime soon-in fact, it could double within one generation's time, a new study by the Pew Hispanic Center says.
An analysis by the center released Wednesday based on U.S. Census Bureau data, Election Day exit polls and a nationwide survey of Hispanic immigrants projects that 12.5 million of the 23.7 million Hispanics in the U.S. voted in the 2012 elections nationwide.
However, the center calculates, the number of future Latino voters in the country in coming election years "will rise quickly for several reasons."
"The most important is that Hispanics are by far the nation's youngest ethnic group," the center states in a statement regarding the study. "Their median age is 27 years-and just 18 years among native-born Hispanics-compared with 42 years for that of white non-Hispanics. In the coming decades, their share of the age-eligible electorate will rise markedly through generational replacement alone."
So, how much will those factors affect the growth of one of the most rapidly growing sectors of the U.S. electorate? If the Hispanic data-collecting firm's projections stay on course, it would mean that by 2030, eligible Hispanics voters will have jumped from 23.7 million this year to 40 million in 18 years--accounting for 40 percent of the growth in eligible U.S. voters.
Currently, Latinos account for 17 percent of the nation's population, with 53 million Hispanics living in the U.S. Latinos played a huge role in the 2012 elections earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal notes, with roughly one in ten voters-12.5 million-being Hispanic. And the heavy Latino turnout-which favored President Barack Obama by a record 75 percent, according to Hispanic voting data poll center Latinos Decisions-played a huge factor in President Obama winning key swing states like Florida, Colorado and Virginia on his way to winning re-election.
"The impact of the Latino vote will only become greater as the Hispanic population grows in nearly every corner of the country," Mark Lopez, co-author of the study, said, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Furthermore, as many as 7.1 million undocumented Latinos could be counted into the electorate if Congress provides them with a path to citizenship, the study notes.
It was likely that issue that cost Republicans the Latino vote in the election. Republican composed a majority of U.S. Senators who struck down legislation in 2007 proposed by former President George W. Bush that would have given undocumented immigrants a path to gaining citizenship, signaling the GOP's adoption of a hardliner approach to illegal immigration that Latino advocates say alienated Hispanics from Republicans.
After Hispanics voted against GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney-who previously promised to adopt tough immigration measures that would have driven undocumented immigrants to "self-deport-Republican leaders such as U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, have come forward as stating that the GOP needs to change its positions on immigration in order to gain back the trust of Hispanic voters.
The center notes that National Election Pool national exit polls showed 10 percent of all voters in 2012 were Hispanic. Media reports and election turnout experts estimated 125 million votes were cast in 2012. However, the center warns, the resulting estimate of 12.5 million Hispanics voters "should be treated with caution."
"If history is a guide, it will likely differ-possibly substantially-with the demographic breakdown of the vote that will be reported next spring based on data drawn from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2012 November Current Population Survey," the center reported.