Latino Americans have received a growing share of the national vote in the United States due to their increasing population. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, 62.1 million Latinos live in the United States, representing 18.9% of the total U.S. population.[1] This is a 23% increase since 2010.[2] This racial/ethnic group is the second largest after non-Hispanic whites in the U.S. In 2020, the states with the highest Hispanic or Latino populations were; Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, and Texas.[1] According to the Brookings Institution, Latinos will become the nations largest minority by 2045 and the deciding population in future elections.[3][4] With the help of laws and court case wins, Latinos have been able to receive the help needed to participate in American Politics. According to data provided by The Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey (CMPS), 72% of Latinos believe that it is very/somewhat important to get their voice heard by voting.[5] They have traditionally been a key Democratic Party constituency,[6] but more recently[7] have begun to split[8] between the Democratic and Republican Party.[9][10][11] Since the Latino population is large and diverse, a lot of political differences exist between gender, national origin, and generational groups.
Contemporary Hispanic politics has roots in the 19th century when the American empire expanded to include Latin American and Caribbean populations. State efforts to incorporate and exclude Latino populations also played a role in shaping current Hispanic politics, as noted by scholars Guillermo (2017),[12] de la Garza & DeSipio[13] (2019), and Montejano (1987).[14] Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, individuals of Mexican American descent residing in the Southwest and Puerto Ricans from the 1880s to the 1950s were often referred to using various terms. Today, the label "Hispanic" has been applied in retrospect to describe these groups, though this usage represents a modern interpretation of historical events. However, recognizing that they faced similar types of political exclusion and neglect that set them apart from other immigrant and native populations during this time is both accurate and important in understanding shared experiences.[13] Three historical circumstances and geographic realities can be highlighted, as they conflict somewhat with common understandings of the Hispanic communities' political past.[15] This gap between popular and scholarly understandings explains Congress's 1975 extension of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) to Latinos in 1975.[citation needed]