Days before Nevada’s primary caucuses, the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund released a new profile of Nevada’s Latino electorate, predicting that “more than 194,000 Latino voters” will cast ballots in elections for 2016.
On February 20, Democrats will hold their caucus, while Republicans hold theirs on February 23. Nevada is the first primary state this election cycle with a significant number of Latino voters. NALEO said that Latinos now make up 13% of the state’s 1.5 million registered voters. In 2004, NALEO noted, 72,000 Latinos voted in Nevada. If NALEO’s 2016 prediction holds, Nevada will see a 269% increase in Latino voter turnout from 2004 to 2016.
“With more than 194,000 Nevada Latino voters expected to cast ballots this year, there is no doubt that the Silver State’s Latino electorate will play a decisive role in electing our nation’s next President,” NALEO executive director Arturo Vargas said in the release. “Simply translating an ad into Spanish is not enough if candidates want to win Nevada’s six electoral votes and the race for the White House in 2016. Candidates will need to have a robust outreach strategy in both English and Spanish that engages Latinos on the issues that matter most if they hope to capture the support of this increasingly influential electorate.”
NALEO also shared characteristics of Nevada’s Latino electorate, saying that “among Latino registered voters in Nevada, approximately 45 percent identify as either Republican (17 percent) or other (28 percent), with 55 percent identifying as Democrat. ” It also added: “For both Latinos and non-Latinos, slightly more than one in every four voters is not affiliated with either major political party.
When it comes to the age of Latino registered voters, NALEO said that voters between 18 and 24 years old made up 16% of the Latino electorate in Nevada. Latino registered voters between 25 and 35 are 24% of the Latino electorate.
These findings used data up until December, 2015. You can access the entire report below:
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