WASHINGTON (AP) – The number of Latinos serving in Congress will rise to at least 41 in the new year, and that figure most likely will increase when two undecided races are called.
Thirty-three out of 44 Latino Democratic candidates won election in Tuesday’s contests, while six out of 15 Latino Republican candidates claimed victory.
Francisco Pedraza, a political scientist at University of California, Riverside, thinks a small increase in the number of Latinos in Congress is very important because it happened despite redistricting that followed Republican victories in the 2010 election.
“In 2014 and in 2016 elections it was not that obvious,” Pedraza told The Associated Press. “Today we see the importance of all the changes brought after the 2010 election.”
The 57 million Latinos who live in the United States are the nation’s largest ethnic or racial minority and constitute 18 percent of the total population. However, their political impact is substantially diluted due to their low electoral turnout.