Political & Civic Engagement

This report analyzes Census data and voting trends on a state-by-state basis to explore the potential of Latinos to be a "swing vote" in the 2008 presidential election.

Latinos made up a slightly larger share of the total voter turnout in the mid-term election of 2006 than they had in the mid-term election of 2002.

Latinos made up a slightly larger share of the total voter turnout in the 2006 election than in 2002; but, a new Pew Hispanic analysis finds, the Latino vote continued to lag well behind growth of the Latino population primarily because a high percentage of the new Hispanics in the U.S. are either too young to vote or are not citizens.

Widely cited findings in the national exit polls suggest Latinos tilted heavily in favor of the Democrats in the 2006 election, taking back a significant portion of the support they had granted the Republicans just two years earlier.

Summary of Findings The Democrats’ big win on Nov. 7 has gotten a highly favorable response from the public. In fact, initial reactions to the Democratic victory are as positive as they were to the GOP’s electoral sweep of Congress a dozen years ago. Six-in-ten Americans say they are happy that the Democratic Party won […]

A new survey finds large differences between Americans who are not registered to vote or vote only rarely and those who cast ballots at least some of the time. These two groups at the bottom of the voting participation scale are much less likely than regular or intermittent voters to believe that voting will make much of a difference.

Unlike the past three mid-term election campaigns, Democrats are more enthusiastic than Republicans about voting this year.

Summary of Findings Turnout in the 2006 midterm election may well be higher than normal, given the level of interest expressed by voters. Today, 51% of voters say they have given a lot of thought to this November’s election, up from 45% at this point in 2002 and 42% in early October of 1998. Even […]

This fact sheet presents estimates for the number of Hispanics who will be U.S. citizens and at least 18 years old and thus eligible to vote as of November 2006.

Not only is there evidence of a reawakening of young people to public life, but today's youth are politically distinctive in many ways.