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Are Latinos Republicans But Just Don’t Know It?

The Latino Vote in the 2000 and 2004 Presidential Elections

Tomás Rivera Policy Institute, Columbia University, New York

Jeronimo Cortina

Columbia University, New York

Every 4 years, during election season, we witness continuously growing appeals from Democrats and Republicans to the Latino electorate with the purpose of gaining enough of their vote to tilt the election to their respective advantage. Although Latinos regularly vote Democratic, Republicans assume that because of their continuing upward mobility and long-standing social conservatism, Latinos are in fact Republicans but just don’t know it yet. In this article, we test how likely Latinos were to abandon their historic attachment to the Democratic Party and identify with the Republican Party in 2000 and 2004. Our conclusion is that although Latinos may have increasingly voted for the Republican candidate in 2004 and over time may change their partisan preferences, the Hispanic electorate was far from abandoning its partisan attachment to the Democratic Party.

Key Words: Latino politics • voting behavior • elections • party identification • partisan preference

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