Latinos key to Obama re-election

All the hype about the importance of the Latino vote came to fruition last night as Barack Obama was re-elected to a second term. Details are now starting to emerge.

According to the Pew Hispanic Center, Latinos made up 10% of the electorate, as indicated by the national exit poll, up from 9% in 2008 and 8% in 2004. The Center's exit poll analysis also shows that as a group, non-white voters made up 28% of the nation's electorate, up from 26% in 2008.

Latinos voted for President Obama over Republican Mitt Romney 71% to 27%, and Obama's national vote share among Hispanic voters is the highest seen by a Democratic candidate since 1996, when President Bill Clinton won 72% of the Hispanic vote.

Moreover, Latinos were critical in key battleground states like Florida, Colorado and Nevada.

• They were 17% of the electorate in Florida, up from 14% in 2008. Obama carried Florida's Hispanic vote 60% to 39%.
• In Colorado, Latinos made up 14% of voters, up from 13% in 2008. Obama carried the Hispanic vote there 75% to 23%.
• In Nevada, the Hispanic share was 18%, up from 15% in 2008. Obama won Nevada's Hispanic vote 70% to 25%. Obama's Hispanic vote was up from 2008 in Florida and Colorado, but down in Nevada.

Among Latino voters, support for Obama was strong among all major demographic sub-groups. However, there was a gender gap among Hispanics as there was among the electorate as a whole. Obama carried Hispanic women with 76% of the vote and Hispanic males with 65%.

Hispanics now largest minority group among U.S. 4-year university students

Hispanics are now the largest minority group among the nation’s four-year college and university students. And for the first time, Hispanics made up one-quarter (25.2%) of 18- to 24-year-old students enrolled in two-year colleges, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

In public schools, Hispanics also reached new milestones. For the first time, one-in-four (24.7%) public elementary school students were Hispanic, following similar milestones reached recently by Hispanics among public kindergarten students (in 2007) and public nursery school students (in 2006).

Among all pre-K through 12^th grade public school students, a record 23.9% were Hispanic in 2011.

Population growth alone does not explain all the enrollment gains as high school completion rate among Hispanics is also at a new high. According to the Pew Hispanic analysis, 76.3% of all Hispanics ages 18 to 24 had a high school diploma or a General Educational Development (GED) degree in 2011, up from 72.8% in 2010. And among these high school graduates, a record share—nearly half (45.6%)—is enrolled in two-year or four-year colleges.

Pew launches year-long look at Millenials

The Pew Research Center announced they will launch new nationwide surveys in 2010 to probe more deeply into Millennial personality traits. In addition, they will look closely at the diversity among the Millennials themselves.

Even without further research, we already know a few big things about the Millennials, according to Pew:

• They are the most ethnically and racially diverse cohort of youth in the nation's history. Among those ages 13 to 29: 18.5% are Hispanic; 14.2% are black; 4.3% are Asian; 3.2% are mixed race or other; and 59.8%, a record low, are white.
• They are starting out as the most politically progressive age group in modern history. In the 2008 election, Millennials voted for Barack Obama over John McCain by 66%-32%, while adults ages 30 and over split their votes 50%-49%. In the four decades since the development of Election Day exit polling, this is the largest gap ever seen in a presidential election between the votes of those under and over age 30.
• They are the first generation in human history who regard behaviors like tweeting and texting, along with websites like Facebook, YouTube, Google and Wikipedia, not as astonishing innovations of the digital era, but as everyday parts of their social lives and their search for understanding.
• They are the least religiously observant youths since survey research began charting religious behavior.
• They are more inclined toward trust in institutions than were either of their two predecessor generations -- Gen Xers (who are now ages 30 to 45) and Baby Boomers (now ages 46 to 64) when they were coming of age.

... and growing and growing and growing ...

If current trends continue, the U.S. Hispanic population will triple by 2050, and the overall U.S. population will rise to 438 million (with 82% of the increase attributable to immigrants arriving from 2005 to 2050 and their U.S.-born descendants), according a report by the Pew Research Center.

The Hispanic population will account for most of the nation's population growth from 2005 through 2050, and make up 29% of the U.S. population in 2050 (compared with 14% in 2005).

The Center's projections are based on detailed assumptions about births, deaths and immigration levels. They don't factor in the economic growth.

Read the USA Today article on the study.