WASHINGTON – Today, the Immigration Policy Center releases a report on the rapidly rising number of New American voters. In The New American Electorate: The Growing Political Power of Immigrants and their Children, New American voters are defined as naturalized U.S. citizens and the children born to immigrants in the U.S. since 1965, when the current wave of immigration from Latin America and Asia began. The report also provides data on Asian and Latino voters.
New Americans have a highly personal connection to the modern immigrant experience and are part of families that live the political and economic realities of immigration today. The Immigration Policy Center began documenting the size of this important voting bloc in 2008.
Report Findings
– New Americans accounted for 1 in 10 registered voters in the U.S. in 2008.
– Between 1996 and 2008, the number of New American registered voters jumped 101.5%.
New Americans were 10.2 percent (15 million) of all registered voters in 2008; 9.3 million were naturalized U.S. citizens and 5.7 million were the children of immigrants.
– The number of New American registered voters exceeded the victory margins in the 2008 presidential election in 12 states (AZ, CA, FL, GA, IN, MO, MT, NV, NJ, NC, TX, VA). In other words, these voters can mean the difference between winning and losing an election.
“At a time when elections are often decided by small voting margins, New Americans have been consistently overlooked and politically underestimated,” said Walter Ewing, Ph.D., the report’s lead author and Senior Researcher at the Immigration Policy Center. “The ranks of registered voters who are New Americans have been growing rapidly this decade and are likely to play an increasingly pivotal role in elections at all levels in the years to come. Candidates perceived as anti-immigrant are unlikely to win their votes.”
