Key takeaways
- About 36.2 million Latinos are eligible to vote this year, almost four million more than in 2020.
- The UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute's "Key Facts About Latino Voters" state briefs examine a broad range of voters' socioeconomic characteristics, including languages spoken, educational attainment, wages and access to health care and insurance.
- The research from each state, drawn from the institute's Latino Data Hub, identifies the unique needs and priorities of a diverse and growing Latino electorate.
The UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute's "Election 2024: Key Facts About Latino Voters" state data briefs are shedding light on the demographic and socioeconomic makeup of the diverse Latino electorate in key states as the 2024 general election draws near.
An estimated 36.2 million Latinos are eligible to vote this year, up from 32.3 million in 2020, representing half of the total growth in eligible voters in the past four years, according to the Pew Research Center.
"This growing demographic not only underscores the increasing political influence of Latino voters but also highlights the necessity of targeted engagement and outreach," said Rodrigo Dominguez-Villegas, the institute's director of research. "As we approach the 2024 election, understanding and addressing the unique needs and priorities of Latino voters will be crucial in shaping the future of our nation's leadership."
The state briefs include data on Latino voters' country of origin, languages spoken, educational attainment, wages, access to health care and insurance, homeownership, transportation, internet connectivity and smartphone use, among other demographics. Data is drawn from the institute's Latino Data Hub, a digital platform that offers customizable data visualizations for various Latino groups, and the U.S. Census Bureau's 2022 pooled five-year American Community Survey, an ongoing annual survey that covers a broad range of socioeconomic characteristics.
Among the findings by state:
Arizona has 1.3 million eligible Latino voters, representing one quarter of the state's electorate. Latinos are the second-largest ethnic group in the state after non-Hispanic whites. In 2020, Joe Biden won Arizona's 11 electoral college votes with a 0.3% margin, or about 10,000 votes, flipping a state that had voted for the Republican candidate in all but one election (1996) since the mid-1900s. Most of these Latino voters are of Mexican descent and are significantly younger than the average voter in the state. About half of all Latino eligible voters in the state have only a high school degree or less education. Nearly half are bilingual Spanish speakers. The state has also dealt with controversial issues this election year with the revival and subsequent repeal of an 1864 abortion ban, the indictment of 18 people in an election interference case and ongoing debate about immigration policy.
In Nevada, 450,000 Latinos are eligible to vote, representing 21% of the state's electorate. In 2020, Biden won Nevada's six electoral college votes with a margin of about 2.4%, or less than 34,000 votes. Nevada remains a battleground state with especially unpredictable polling.
In California, while a majority of Latinos are Mexican American, groups from Central and South America are growing, with the population of Dominicans and Venezuelans more than doubling between 2010 and 2020. And as waves of immigration subside, California is welcoming a new generation of younger, U.S.-born and English-speaking Latinos who are rapidly becoming eligible to vote. Nevertheless, turnout for Latinos remains lower than other major racial or ethnic groups.
Florida has the third-largest number of Latino eligible voters — about 3.3 million — in the U.S. Making up one-fifth of the state's electorate, Latinos in Florida are noted to have higher educational attainment than the nationwide average; almost 60% have at least some college education and 29% have a bachelor's degree or higher, 7 percentage points more than in the U.S. The state also has a high diversity of descent groups. Although Latino voters in the state favored Biden over Donald Trump in 2020 by a 2-to-1 margin, Miami-Dade County — the county containing the state's largest share of Latino voters —was an exception. Four in five Latino eligible voters in Florida are Spanish speakers, including the 30% of Latinos who only speak Spanish. These high rates are more pronounced in Miami-Dade County, where more than 90% of Latinos speak Spanish.
Juliana Phan, co-author of the data briefs and research analyst at the institute, says the findings underscore the importance of understanding and responding to the unique characteristics of Latino voters to ensure their full participation in the democratic process.
"No two states are alike, and the electorate is diverse and dynamic," Phan said. "Effective voter mobilization strategies that address language barriers, educational disparities and economic inequalities are essential to engaging this growing population."
