Democrats won most of the Hispanic vote last week, but the Republican showing improved, according to data reported by the Pew Research Center Monday.
It found that in the Georgia and Texas gubernatorial races, Republicans got more than 40 percent of the Latino vote. Nationally, 36 percent of Hispanics voted for Republican House candidates, up from two years earlier, when the percentage was 30 percent.
But turnout in the Latino community lagged.
“Even as the Latino vote remained flat at 8 percent, their share among eligible voters has grown from 8.6 percent in 2006 to 11 percent this year,” Pew reported.
It found the number of Hispanic eligible voters has reached more than 25 million, up from 17.3 million in 2006.
“This suggests, but does not show, that voter turnout among Latinos may not have surged this year,” Pew said.
Pew found five “takeaways” from the election worth noting. Among them were that it wasn’t clear that President Barack Obama’s delaying immigration had a big influence on the Latino vote, and that the economy was by far the biggest issue for Latino voters.