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Latino turnout in congressional elections is low and falling

By Matthew Yglesias Updated

Everyone knows that the growing Latino population is transforming American politics, but a new Census Bureau graphic on voter turnout shows that at least when it comes to congressional elections, Latinos are punching below their weight — and increasingly so:

Overall turnout in 2014 was the lowest in a generation. Black turnout actually increased slightly over this period, but white turnout has fallen and Latino turnout has fallen a lot even as the Latino share of the population rose considerably.

And this, to be clear, is turnout among eligible voters — i.e., US citizens over the age of 18. The overall Latino population in the United States is disproportionately likely to be too young to vote, so Hispanics are even more underweighted in actual congressional politics than this chart suggests.

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