Hispanic voters may flex muscles

Hispanic voters helped President Barack Obama win Nevada in 2008 and were part of the push that put U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid over the top in 2010, in both cases demonstrating the muscle of a growing part of the electorate.

Opinions differ on whether that growing strength will be seen in the Las Vegas City Council race for Ward 3, which has the city's highest concentration of Hispanic voters and where all voters will have a chance to elect the council's first Hispanic member.

"Every election cycle since 1998, Hispanic participation has increased," said Andres Ramirez, a political consultant who previously worked on engaging Latino voters for the state Democratic Party. "As I'm looking at the numbers, I don't see that trend stopping."

Others do, however.

"Minority voters across the board don't show up for these city elections like they do in general elections," said Steve Redlinger, campaign manager for candidate Steve Evans. He predicted a drop in Hispanic turnout.

Those voters are very important in Ward 3, where they make up about 45 percent of the approximately 19,000 registered voters. Their presence becomes especially important in a low-turnout, off-year municipal race that usually attracts a fraction of the attention given to county, state and national races.

In 2008 and 2010, Hispanics made up 15 percent of voters in the state. Ward 3 candidate Adriana Martinez said her campaign's figures show 16 percent Hispanic turnout, and Ramirez said early voting and absentee ballots back that up. Of the 1,530 ward voters who had voted early or absentee through Tuesday, 278 -- 18 percent -- had Hispanic surnames, he said.

Redlinger countered that for the trend to be valid, turnout would need to be a lot higher.

"For that to be true, you would be seeing this spike in turnout, and we're just not seeing that," he said.

He expects 4,000 votes in the race for the open seat, which would be up from 2007 and 2003 totals in races with an established incumbent. Perhaps 500, or 12.5 percent, will be Hispanic voters, he said.

CANDIDATES REACHING OUT

The three leading candidates in the seven-person race say they're attuned to the Hispanic vote and are already reaching out.

Former state lawmaker Bob Coffin, whose mother was Mexican, said that 40 percent of the people taking his yard signs have Hispanic surnames, but that he's also heard turnout "is lower right now."

"My mailings, my phones have been to all voters," Coffin said. "The Latino people of the district know who I am and they know I'm of Mexican descent.

"If you appeal to everyone the same, then you never get trapped saying that you patronized one group."

Martinez, a City Council liaison and former state Democratic Party chairwoman, is betting on higher Hispanic turnout.

"What I'm seeing is greater turnout," she said. "We are on top of this game.

"The issues affecting Ward 3 pretty much resonate with everybody, regardless of ethnicity."

Evans, a Las Vegas Planning Commission member who describes himself as the "non-Spanish speaking gringo that they seem to like," doesn't have Hispanic heritage but has proposed a Latin Quarter concept that would create a special business district akin to a Chinatown to focus community and business activity.

His website and mailings are in Spanish and English.

"I don't know what to expect" as far as participation, he said. "I'm not taking it for granted. It's an area of the ward that's very underserved, and I have a plan."

An early poll by the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors found Coffin ahead with the support of 27 percent of respondents and strong name recognition, followed by Martinez with 15 percent and Evans with 5 percent. Not much campaigning had occurred when the poll was taken, and more than half of the sample was undecided.

Coffin also is ahead on fundraising, closing in on $150,000, while Martinez and Evans were in the neighborhood of $60,000. In 2010, a City Council member's salary was $72,000.

VOTING SLOW SO FAR

In early voting, the Ward 3 polling sites are among the least trafficked, pulling in 75 to about 200 voters on each of the days they've been open. Other sites elsewhere in the city attract two or three times that number in a day, and on Saturday, locations at Charleston and Rampart boulevards and in Sun City Summerlin brought in a combined 2,087 voters.

Early voting ends Friday. The primary election is Tuesday. If no candidate wins a majority, the top two finishers move on to the June 7 general election.

Ward 3 includes half of Fremont Street, the Stratosphere, the John S. Park Historic District and other downtown neighborhoods, but it also runs east to include commercial corridors along Lamb and Nellis boulevards. The buildings and infrastructure tend to be older and the ward is playing catch-up with some of the newer areas in the city's northwest.

Turnout in off-year municipal elections is usually "abysmal," said Kenneth Fernandez, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Local candidates would do well to learn from national races in which Hispanics have become a key electorate, he said.

"In 2010, we saw an increase in Latino turnout from 2008, which is remarkable," he said. "Nobody expected that because midterm turnout always drops."

It would be normal to see it drop more in a municipal race: "They tend to have a lower turnout rate than whites, and then you have a local race without as much advertising," Fernandez said.

The typical strategy in a city race is to focus on voters who have voted in local elections before, since those are the most likely participants.

"Reaching out to Latinos and new voters could make a difference," he said. "I think it's a losing strategy if you don't reach out to the Latino population, especially if it's a tight race.

"Until candidates are punished or they lose by ignoring that group, that behavior will not change."

Contact reporter Alan Choate at achoate@reviewjournal.com or 702-229-6435.