Minorities increasingly will influence elections if their turnout keeps rising and the pool of voters keeps growing. It’s certain minorities will want to see more people in office who look like them, understand their needs and in some cases speak their language.
The issue:
The nation’s complexion is rapidly changing. A more racially and ethnically diverse population is rising so that, perhaps within three decades, whites will no longer be the majority. That means shifts in political power, the risk of intensified racial tensions and the opportunity to forge a multiracial society unlike anything in America’s past.
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Where they stand:
Nearly half a century after enacting the Civil Rights Act, America elected its first black president in 2008. President Barack Obama says that milestone alone changed attitudes on race, yet “I never bought into the notion that by electing me, somehow we were entering into a postracial period.” He’s trod carefully on matters of race, in some minds too carefully, in favor of a rising-tide-lifts-all-boats philosophy.
Mitt Romney appears to favor the melting-pot ideal more than the mosaic, envisioning a future in which Americans put aside cultural differences grounded in race and ethnicity to stand as one people. A gulf remains, though, between minorities and the Republican Party as blacks and Latinos in particular continue to see their interests better represented by Democrats. Hispanic Republicans are making striking inroads in state politics; nationally, it’s a different story. GOP immigration policy alone has been taken as a sign of hostility.
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