The Foundations of Latino Voter Partisanship: Evidence from the 2000 Election

Traditionally, the Latino electorate has been considered to be Democratic in partisan affiliation. However, during the 2000 presidential election there were many efforts made by the Republican Party to court Latino voters, suggesting that perhaps Latino voters may be becoming more Republican in orientation. Using a telephone survey of Latino likely voters conducted in the 2000 election, we examine three different sets of correlates of Latino voter partisanship: social and demographic, issue and ideological, and economic. We find that Latino voter partisanship is strongly structured by social and demographic, as well as issue and ideological, factors. We also find that while it is unlikely that changes in economic factors or abortion attitudes will significantly change which parties the different Latino nation-origin groups identify with, it is possible that changes in ideological positions regarding the role of government in providing social services could result in significant changes in Latino party identification.