When people talk about the growing clout of the Latino voters, it’s usually states like California, Florida or Arizona that come to mind. Most are surprised to learn Latinos in Georgia are now 10 percent of the state’s population.
Atlanta may be the Black Mecca of the South, but Georgia is also a state where Latinos are five percent of eligible voters. That may not sound like much, until you consider that President-elect Joe Biden’s vote margin over President Trump last month was less than one-third of one percentage point, or just under 12,000 votes. And if you also consider that 160,000 Georgia Latinos cast a ballot in November, according to Latino Decisions.
In other words, Latinos could be a decisive voting bloc when two Republican incumbents for the U.S. Senate, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, meet in a January 5 runoff against Democratic challengers, Rev. Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff, respectively, in what most observers predict will be another photo-finish race.
Georgia home today to just over 1 million Latinos, 45 percent of whom are of Mexican origin, according to Pew Research. Puerto Ricans are 20 percent of the state’s Latino population, with Cubans, Salvadorans and Dominicans combining for another 12 to 13 percent. The rest are of other Latin American origins.
Read the article here