The Hispanic Vote in US Elections: Red hot with potential to fire up last mile

On misty mornings, as the air gets colder and the leaves fall, dozens of men gather their shirts closer and hang around an empty mall on Little River Turnpike in Fairfax, Virginia, their calloused hands bunched into their pockets, staring hopefully at cars that drive into the frame, waiting for building contractors to turn up offering a few hours of work or odd jobs that need tough men.

“Work around the corner,” they call it.

“We don’t have no papers,” says Andy, 45, who crossed the border from Mexico hiding in the lowest part of a truck. “If I go, no come back.”

Andy’s wife Rosa came here from Lima, Peru as a tourist in the early 90s.

Her tourist visa expired, she met Andy, they married, they made babies - both American citizens. Their elder child Nicole will vote for the very first time in 2016.

Billionaire and Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump made headlines for branding such children “anchor babies” who he claims are “not citizens.” He has called for a repeal of “birthright citizenship” which grants automatic right of citizenship to anyone born in the United States. He has also been yelling about Latinos being rapists and criminals.

Anchor babies is a derogatory term used to describe children who are born in the United States to undocumented parents.

“Basta! (enough!)”  says Hillary Clinton to this talk from Trump, playing to the Latino gallery.

Even Hispanic Republican insiders are livid.

“You don’t need us now, you won’t have us then. You insult us now, we will be deaf to you then,” Rosario Marin, who served as U.S. Treasurer under President George W. Bush, warns Trump and anybody taking a hard line on Latinos.

Good timing

Never before in American history has such a large cohort of newcomers lived so close to their homelands, linked by a common time zone, cheap air tickets, telecom connectivity and culture. Never before have they carried so much heft in the election of an American presdient.

This rice, beans and salsa loving public holds the potential to fire any campaign that makes them feel protected. In 2012, that person was Obama. Now, all the top candidates want this piece of the pie. Except Trump.

If these folks turn up on voting day, that is.

Less than half of the 23 million Hispanics turned up to vote in 2012. Most adults are non citizens, the children often fall into the “low-income” category, these two qualities typically make for low turnouts among ethnic groups.

61 per cent of Democratic primary voters are more likely to vote for a candidate whose plans are along the lines of Obama’s. They’ll take a meat cleaver to any candidate who mentions the D word (deportation).

Rosa talks of Obama like he’s her personal chum.“He ( Obama) will take care. He will give us papers,” she has been saying for years now. When Obama introduced the immigration bill, it was the first time they drove out in their beat up car without the fear of getting caught. Andy does not have a local driving license because he does not have “papers.”

But what a difference a decade can make.

Hispanics now account for 35 per cent of the foreign born population in the USA.

Every year, 900,000 Hispanics born in America reach voting age and they are making America younger. The median age of blacks is 32, whites 42 and hispanics 18.

Whites are projected to become less than half of the U.S. population by 2055 . Hispanics will see their population share rise to 24% by 2065 from 18% today, while Asians will see their share rise to 14% by 2065 from 6% today.

An estimated 11.3 million unauthorized immigrants lived in the U.S. in 2014 and this population has remained stable for five years after nearly two decades of constant change. Like Andy and Rosa, these 11.3 million people are likely to be long-term residents.

Quality of political messaging

Hanging around in America that long is leading to a new trend among the Hispanics. More of the younger Latinos are filling public school classrooms and speaking better English at younger ages, they are more educated and want to hear more from politicians about social mobility. Today, about six-in-ten U.S. adult Hispanics (62%) speak English or are bilingual.

Not deporting them, not nagging them about driving licenses and ID proof is passe’ because their pal Obama took care of that even if it’s not cast in stone yet.

“Per capita we are behind in wealth and better paying jobs, these things resonate,” says Congressman Henry Cuellar.

Winning the Latino vote means winning big but it will require sophisticated messaging, not just pandering to their fears from another time when the whites outnumbered them.

For those who live in America and watched World Cup Football 2014 on NBC’s Spanish channel Telemundo without understanding a word but just for the sheer drama of the impassioned commentators who would virtually sweep you into the stadium with their Gooooooooooooal!, that’s the answer to how Latinos vote.

All heart.

That’s right, it’s football. Never soccer.