Voter Demographics

Scott Keeter, director of survey research, explains why pollsters switch from registered voters to likely voters in their samples as Election Day nears, and how the Pew Research Center determines who is likely to vote.

Florida’s Latino population is the third-largest in the nation. More than 4.2 million Hispanics reside in Florida, 8% of all Hispanics in the United States. There are 2.1 million Latino eligible voters in Florida, 10% of all U.S. Latino eligible voters.

More than 6.6 million Latinos voted in last year’s election—a record for a midterm. Fueled by their rapid population growth, Latinos also were a larger share of the electorate in 2010 than in any previous midterm election, representing 6.9% of all voters, up from 5.8% in 2006.

Hispanic voters are nearly three times more prevalent in states that gained congressional seats and Electoral College votes in the 2010 reapportionment than they are in states that lost seats.

Hispanic voters are nearly three times more prevalent in states that gained congressional seats and Electoral College votes in the 2010 reapportionment than they are in states that lost seats.

Tuesday’s midterm elections were historic for Hispanics. For the first time ever, three Latino candidates—all of them Republicans—won top statewide offices.

Following voting trends, white Protestants voted overwhelmingly Republican and religiously unaffiliated voters overwhelmingly supported Democrats. But Catholic voters swung to the GOP, and Republicans made gains in all three groups.

There will almost certainly be far more nonvoters than voters this year. Nonvoters are younger, less educated and more financially stressed than likely voters. They are also significantly less Republican and more likely to approve of Obama's job performance.

There are 766,000 eligible Hispanic voters in Arizona, 18% of all eligible voters in the state.

There are 5.4 million eligible Hispanic voters in California, 24% of all eligible voters in the state.