WATCH FOR HISPANIC IMPACT IN MIDTERM ELECTIONS

By Julio Barreto & Raisa Camargo

Hispanic Link News Service

Defying claims by many political prognosticators and pollsters that thousands of disgruntled Latinos will sit on the sidelines Nov. 2, nearly one million new Hispanic voters will participate in the midterm election, the nation’s leading impartial authority reaffirmed to Hispanic Link Oct. 29.  That alone is a 17 percent increase over four years ago.

But Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund, says that late feedback presages that its own projections, released two weeks ago, that 6.5 million Latinos will cast ballots, will likely be surpassed.

Citing daily reports from Hispanic and other get-out-the-vote activist groups, he promises, “Latinos are fully engaged and ready to vote.”

POLLS SHOW SLIGHT LATINO REPUBLICAN GAINS LIKELY

By Raisa Camargo and Julio Barreto

Hispanic Link News Service

The current makeup of voting members in the U.S. Congress shows Hispanics, now 15 percent of the U.S. population, badly underrepresented, particular on the Republican side.

Only one Latino — Democrat Robert Menéndez of New Jersey — serves in the 100-member Senate.

In the 435-member House of Representatives, there are 27 Hispanics, only three of whom are Republican.

One Hispanic — retiring Democrat Bill Richardson of New Mexico — governs a state.

Polls nationwide indicate a couple of likely gains for Latino Republicans at both the congressional and gubernatorial levels. 

Here are some late projections: 

THE REVEREND’S WRONG SERMON ON VOTING RIGHTS

By José de la Isla

Hispanic Link News Service

HOUSTON — A very disturbing anti-civic infection appeared during this past election.

Rev. Miguel Angel Rivera exhorted the 7-million-member, mostly evangelical, National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders he heads to “Go to the polls, but leave the ballot blank,”

Do what? Are you kidding me?

He claimed Latinos could that way show both their voting potential and register a message of disappointment about Congress’s lack of progress on immigration reform.

"They promise to reform immigration when they are seeking our votes,” he said, “then do nothing when they're elected. Why vote when you've been taken advantage of?”

His message sounded like the surrender of hard-won voting rights and faintly like the complaint that got the Latino voter-registration movement started in the first place.