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'88 Election: How Will They Vote?
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15055 |
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Section : |
SPECIAL SECTION
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| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1988 |
2,469 Words |
| Author
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David Brock
David Brock, a senior editor at Insight magazine, recently
returned from Peru. |
For all their myriad differences, Vice President George Bush and Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis have one thing in common: In the race for the presidency this year, both are laying claim to a special rapport with the nation's hotly sought-after Hispanic voters.
On the campaign stump this spring, Dukakis dazzled Mexican-American audiences in Texas with his fluency in Spanish, frequently alluding to the time he lived in Latin America as evidence of his expertise on the problems facing that region. Dukakis received large electoral majorities in Hispanic precincts in Texas on Super Tuesday, helping him to win the state and propelling his candidacy to the fore.
Bush, meanwhile, campaigned in Florida in the company of his son Jeb, the state's popular secretary of commerce, who speaks fluent Spanish and is married to a Mexican-American. Bush's son turned what could have been a close Florida primary race into a runaway, as the vice president raised large sums of money and racked up record numbers of votes in the influential Cuban American Miami enclave.
The fact that such disparate candidates would look to the same group of voters for support attests not only to the importance of the Hispanic vote but also to its remarkable diversity. At the same time, the wide range of opinion found in the Hispanic community on the issues of the day means it's unlikely to cast ballots as a block. The overall impact of Hispanic voters thus remains a matter of debate.
Sheer numbers tell part of the story. Hispanics are the fastest growing ethnic population group--and voting group--in the nation. In 1988, the U.S. Census Bureau projects that the potential Hispanic voting-age population in this county will have grown by 1.1 million from 1986 to slightly more than 13 million in 1988 (excluding the approximately 2 million adult Hispanic residents of Puerto Rico).
The number of Hispanic votes cast is also on the rise, having increased by 29.3 percent between 1982 and 1986. Between 1976 and 1986, the Hispanic share of total votes cast increased from 2.4 percent to 3.6 percent.
Expected to Vote
More than 3.5 million Hispanics are expected to vote in November's general election, according to figures compiled by the nonpartisan National Hispanic Leadership Conference.
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