Latinos and the Electoral College in the US

With the Democratic National Convention underway today in Charlotte, North Carolina, I can't do better than to do a cut-and-paste of my son's blog posting from today:

“If Texas becomes a blue state, it will become blue because of the Hispanic vote,” said Gilberto Hinojosa, the Texas Democratic Party chairman. 

“And the day that Texas becomes blue, it becomes mathematically impossible for Republicans to elect the president of the United States,” he said.

This is a very evocative--and provocative--way to think about the political demography of the Latino population. The article gets the electoral numbers a bit wrong, but if Texas voted democratic, then TX+CA+NY = 122 electoral votes, and that is a huge amount.

A key point here is the future, which is why demography is so critical. The population of the United States is changing, and many people--especially young people--who cannot currently vote eventually will start doing so. If the lopsided support for the Democratic Party persists and the Republican Party remains schizophrenic with its position on immigration and diversity, then the Electoral College will gradually become the Republican Party's worst enemy.