A long, long, long line of early voters in a Las Vegas grocery store over the weekend and reports of other high Latino early voting has been creating some excitement as Election Day nears.
Witnesses to the long lines to vote at Cardenas grocery store – where the poll was open until 10 p.m. Friday – were ecstatic and amazed by the numbers who were waiting to cast their ballot.
Political analyst Jon Ralston said the turnout may have spelled the end for Republicans.
There were reports of high Latino early voting turnout in other states:
The Arizona Republic reported that the state has seen the largest increase in Latino early voting than any state.
The newspaper said that as of Oct. 30, Latino voters cast 13 percent of the early ballots, up from 11 percent at the same point before the 2012 presidential election and up from 8 percent in 2008.
The Austin American-Statesman reported a 26.6 increase as of last Wednesday over 2012 in early voting by Latinos with Spanish surnames in the state’s 20 biggest counties, based on an analysis by a political consultant and former researcher with the Republican Party of Texas. Spanish surnames are not the best way to determine turnout because they can belong to a non-Hispanic person who uses a Hispanic spouse's last name or can be the name of someone who is Filipino. Many Hispanics also don't have Spanish surnames, such as former Mexican President Vicente Fox. But because Texas doesn't collect racial identification in voter registration it is a simpler, less expensive way to analyze Latino turnout.
A Nov. 1 snapshot of early voting in Florida, showed Hispanics made up 13.77 percent of the early vote in Florida, compared to 9.89 percent in 2012, also on Nov. 1. The analysis was done by NBC's News Data Analytics Lab, using voter file data provided by TargetSmart.
