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Half of potential new voters in the November 5 presidential election come from Latin origina community increasingly present in the American political class.

This fact raises the question: How long will it be before we see a Latino in the White House?.

“Given the growth and importance of the Latino vote” and “as more Latinos are elected to the U.S. Congress and Senate, the list of potential presidential candidates is only growing,” he says. EFE Matt A. Barreto is director of the Voting Rights Project at the University of California (UCLA) Latino Policy Institute.

According to data from Pew CenterHalf of potential new voters in this election are Latino. Total 36.2 million have voting rightsfour million more than in 2020.

In 2024, a record typically surpassed in every election will be broken: Latinos will represent 14.7% of all eligible voters, up from 13.6% in 2020.

In recent years, Barreto recalls, it was noticed “Latin American Candidates Run for President”with Julián Castro (Democrat) and Marco Rubio (Republican) as the “most prominent names”. But they all refused to participate in the race.

In an interview with EFEthe most senior Hispanic legislator in the US Congress, Pete Aguilar, Chairman of the House Democratic Caucushe recently noted: “I know that I will see a Latino president in my lifetime.. I hope I’m lucky enough to find out who he is and I can help him along the way.”

Marco Davis, president and CEO of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, says it’s a “very real” possibility.

“Given the state of presidential politics, could happen very soonbecause we see that more and more new candidates are quickly appearing on the national stage,” he told EFE in an interview.

What he needs, he adds, “is for him to appeal to a wide enough range of members of his party, outside his own community, to get the nomination.”

“It shows that we’ve seen Pete Aguilar rise to a leadership role in the House, Alex Padilla represent a major state like California in the Senate, and Ruben Gallego make a credible bid for the Senate in a key state like Arizona. that our leaders can reach a diverse electorate,” he explains to EFE.

Will the first Latino president be a Democrat or a Republican?

According to Barreto, Latin America’s first definitive candidate is likely to be a Democratsince “outside the city of Miami, Latino voters vote overwhelmingly Democratic.”

Although, he notes, if Kamala Harris wins the presidency from Donald Trump with strong Latino support, it would certainly “put pressure on the Republican Party” and “it might be possible to see someone like Marco Rubio try again for the presidency in 2028.” »

On the Democratic side, he adds, “looking to the future,” there are “a number of very well-known Hispanic U.S. senators, such as Alex Padilla, Ben Ray Luján, Catherine Cortez Masto and soon Ruben Gallego, who have become rising stars.”

“I also wouldn’t rule out someone like Julián Castro, who already has valuable experience running for president in 2020, as well as experience as a cabinet secretary and mayor of a major city” (San Antonio), he adds.

What will the first Latino president be like?

No matter how much time passes, the name of the presidential candidate – Republican or Democrat – will not be first on the ballot.

This election already has one candidate – Claudia de la Cruz, candidate of the Party of Socialism and Liberation (PSL), whose name will be present in 21 of the 50 states in which the party has overcome various and difficult obstacles to be a candidate.

De la Cruz was born in the South Bronx to immigrant parents from the Dominican Republic. She admits to EFE that she has no choice, but emphasizes that her participation is “an opportunity to engage in mass education and intervene in political discourse.”

In his opinion, the arrival of a Latino in the White House is “inevitable.” “The problem is whoever gets it done really represents the working-class Latino community in this country,” he argues.

De la Cruz believes that today the presence of Latinos in politics “is something very cosmetic, very superficial.”

“Their representation does not represent the real interests of the working class, but rather they represent the interests of the ruling class,” a candidate from a party with Marxist-Leninist ideology tells EFE.

EFE