They are the same size if you assume black turnout continues it's upward trend since 2000. I think it's very unlikely it does though.
Actually, there's no reason to expect that the two voting blocs won't be approximately the same size for the foreseeable future. Obama wasn't on the ballot in 2014,
and the exit polls for that year still showed a much deeper level of political engagement among African Americans than among Latinos.
Yes, at some point in the distant future, I anticipate that demographic trends will take over and Hispanic voters become a noticeably larger group than African-American voters. But I wouldn't expect a wide gap to develop between the two groups for another twenty years at least, and why any Republican would want to encourage such a development through loose immigration policies is beyond me.
A difference with this is latinos are going to become the majority in the century. They do historically vote democrat and in the past but I don't think that closes out the chance for improvement.
They underperform economically. They poll liberal on economic issues, and on a quite few social issues as well. They've been voting 2 to 1 in favor of the Democratic Party since polling began to track their opinions in the 1970s.
In other words, they're Democrats.
And there's nothing to indicate they are eager to change their minds and start voting Republican. They have a party they're comfortable with, and it's called the Democratic Party.
http://www.latinodecisions.com/blog...p-field-who-can-actually-win-the-latino-vote/
If you look at this 2013 poll, it agrees with what we've seen in the past. Even when latino's think somewhat favorably about a gop candidate, that doesn't translate to votes.
By tradition, habit, and perceived self-interest, Latinos are habituated to Democratic Party politics, and there's no reason to believe they are open to turning to the Republican Party unless the GOP adopts big government policies, which is how George W. Bush was able to eventually win 40 percent of them in 2004.
I really think immigration reform is much more likely happening if you get a pro-immigration republican in office compared to a democrat. The house will cave if their own party leader wanted that legislation pushed though with the majority they have. I easily can see Rubio or Bush pulling something like that off.
I can't. Why would that make a difference at all? There's no evidence Hispanics vote Democrat because of immigration. They do so for a host of reasons, including immigration.
So take away immigration, and Hispanics still have host of other reasons to vote Democrat.
But then you could argue that it would just be the 80's all over again. Reagan got in the 30's with Latino voters.
I would make that argument.
When Reagan ran in 1980, he won 37 percent of the Hispanic vote. That's a pretty good mark for a Republican - the second highest in forty years of polling and the highest for a first-time Republican candidate for president.
Four years later, most Americans thought he had done a good job as president, and he was overwhelmingly re-elected with eight percent more of the national popular vote than he received in 1980 (59 percent to 51 percent).
But among Hispanics, those four years convinced some of them that Reagan wasn't their man, and his percentage of the Hispanic vote went down slightly to 34 percent. So when everybody's else's opinion of Reagan was going up, Hispanics' view of Reagan was going down.
In Reagan's second term, immigration reform was passed. You might have said well perhaps that would do it.
But, no, when Reagan's lieutenant, George H. W. Bush, ran in 1988, he won just 30 percent of the Hispanic vote. And Bush was very friendly towards Hispanics in the election.
In other words, even though Republicans had gone along with amnesty in the late 80s, it didn't help them one bit with Hispanics at the ballot box.
So why would you expect it to do so now?
