Hispanic voters are few compared to anti-illegal immigration voters

Most analysts support amnesty for illegal immigrants, so they analysis and commentary is biased towards the arguments that Republicans should not pursue tougher enforcement policies, least they anger the growing "Hispanic vote". This includes supposedly conservative Fox News.

The truth is that while the Hispanic vote is certainly growing, for the foreseeable future the Hispanic vote is a negligible when compared to the anti-illegal immigration vote.

Voters in 2008 were given a choice: Either their view came closer to fining illegal's and giving them a pathway to citizenship (a moderate choice), or deporting them outright (pretty dramatic given the political climate). About 85% of the voters in 2008 expressed an opinion. Of all voters, an astonishing 59% preferred that illegal immigrants be deported.

I combine these figures with US Census measure of voting in 2008.

Let us compare the anti-illegal immigration block with the Hispanic vote.

Generally, people overestimate how large of the population minorities are. According to the General Social Survey, people think 25% of the population was Hispanic when the true figure is closer to 15%.

Second, disproportionally Hispanics are children and thus not allowed to vote.

Third, many Hispanics are not citizen, and thus not allowed to vote. In the 2008 election only 9.5% of the citizen population was Hispanic.

Fourth, Hispanics are less likely to vote than other groups, even if citizen. In the 2008 election, only 7.4% of voters were Hispanic.

Fifth, not all Hispanic voters support amnesty. Of Hispanic voters, 37% of Hispanics supported deporting illegal immigrants rather than fining them and than giving them a pathway to citizenship. So the pro-immigration Hispanics vote in 2008 was only 5.4% of the total vote.

Sixths, the national popular vote is not what counts. The Hispanic vote is concentrated in a few large, non-competitive states such as California, Texas, New York and Illinois.

I have calculated the vote share in the 18 battleground states. These are Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Colorado, New Hampshire, Iowa, Missouri, Georgia, Indiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon and Virginia. Most likely the battleground states in 2008 are the same as 2012 and onward.

According to the best source, the U.S Census, in 2008 only 4.7% of voters in 18 battleground states were Hispanic. In comparison 81% where non-Hispanic white. 12% were African American, and 1% Asian.

Let me repeat one of those figures again. Even in 2008, when minority turnout was high due to Obama being on the ticket, and white turnout was low due to McCain being on the ticket, white voters in battleground states outnumbered Hispanic voters 17 to 1!

Political correctness has been allowed to determine how much attention is given to voting groups. Despite the impression the media has given us, each white vote is still worth as much as each hispanic vote.

The share of the Hispanic voters in battleground states who supported deporting illegal's was 34%.

This makes the size of the Hispanic pro-amnesty vote a negligible 3.1% of the battleground state vote.

In contrast, 60% of battleground voters supported deportation of illegal immigrants. This included 64% of white voters, 37% of Asian voters and 40% of Black voters.

The white anti-illegal immigration block alone constituted 52% of battleground state voters in 2008.. This is not taking into account another 8 percentage points of minority (hispanic, black, asian) anti-illegal immigration voters. Even this little group is much larger than the Hispanic vote...

Again, the white anti-illegal immigration vote is 17 times larger than the Hispanic pro-amnesty vote. Which voting group would a rational politician aim for to win, the 3% block or the 52% block?

Of course, Hispanic pro-immigration voters care more about Amnesty than white voters. Still, no amount of voter enthusiasm is going to dominate a 17-1 difference in size.

Yes, the Hispanic vote is growing, but at a slow speed. The Hispanic share is growing by about 1 percentage points per election (every 4 years), so it will take decades for them to be an significant part of the vote. Currently they are too few to determine American immigration policy. Even the supporters are amnesty are mostly not Hispanic, but liberal whites (and African Americans) in the blue, non-competitive states.

If someone wants to convince us that suburban white women feel skirmish about illegal immigration and that this is a reason not to be too tough, I am willing to listen. But pro-amnesty analysts telling us we should not fix the border of fear of Hispanic voters is either unaware of the facts on the ground or trying to trick us.

Math triumphs political correctness, and the math is telling us that enforcing the laws is a winning political issue for conservatives.
PS.

An interesting fact about Arizona is that unlike most other states, in Arizona 60% of Hispanics as well as 65% of whites support deportation of illegal immigrants.