As we’re approaching another U.S. presidential election, there is no shortage of discussion about which groups of voters are going to be most important to woo. While major elections tend to get all the ink, local elections on issues including the environment and school funding can have a very broad impact on the quality of life in local municipalities. The demographic shifts in the United States show the growing power — and importance — of the Latino vote across the country and in places like Boulder County.
While the importance of the Latino vote, both for politicians and for our representative democracy as a whole, will be in full relief in 2016, it will become much more apparent in the future. Projects like “Next America,” and “States of Change” — by the American Enterprise Institute and the Center for American Progress — show the influence that the declining white vote is having all over the country.
What do the numbers say? This year, the U.S. Census released its fifth special tabulation of potential eligible voters based on race and where they live. (Eligible voters being U.S. citizens who are over the age of 18, not registered voters.) The numbers are from the 2009-2013 5-year American Community Survey.
The Community Foundation’s TRENDS report took out some numbers from that report to illuminate the future of the local and national voting public.
We took a look at citizens of voting age by race, and citizens by race as a percentage of all citizens of that race. The lower the percentage of voters out of all U.S. citizens, the faster-growing that population is, because it shows how many citizens are under the age of 18 today. For our purposes in this post, we just looked at children and adults who are citizens, and therefore eligible to vote after age 18. Immigration reform movements like the Dream Act would profoundly alter the already fast-growing Latino vote.
Percentage of U.S. Citizens 18 years or older, by race, as a percentage of all U.S. citizens of that race:
In the United States:
White alone: 80%
Hispanic or Latino: 58%
In Boulder County:
White alone: 81%
Hispanic or Latino: 56%
In the City of Boulder:
White alone: 87.5%
Hispanic or Latino: 67%
In the City of Longmont:
White alone: 80%
Hispanic or Latino: 51%
Percentage of U.S. citizens 18 years or older today who are:
White alone:
In the United States: 71% of 217.6 million
In Boulder County: 87% of 220,200
In the City of Boulder: 88% of 80,650
In the City of Longmont: 81% of 56,800
Hispanic or Latino:
In the United States: 10%
In Boulder County: 8%
In the City of Boulder: 5.5%
In the City of Longmont: 14%
