Ethnic Factor May Tip the Scale
Cynthia Burton
www.hispanicbusiness.com
Nov 6, 2006
For the first time in New Jersey history, a major party is asking the state's voters to select a minority for statewide office, and the ethnic factor could be decisive in a close race.
Polls show Democratic U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, who was appointed to the Senate in January, locked in a tight race with Republican nominee Thomas H. Kean Jr.
And some analysts suspect the polls under-represent those who will not vote for him because he's Hispanic. The ethnic factor could cost Menendez as much as 3 percent, said David Rebovich, Rider University's managing director of the Institute for New Jersey Politics.
"In a close race, that could matter a lot," he said.
Louis DeSipio, chair of the Chicano/Latino Studies Department at the University of California, Irvine, said: "Menendez has a little bit of a higher burden to reach on Election Day. He really needs to be a little more ahead if he expects to win."
Menendez has an additional burden - he is the first.
"There's a subtle level of fear among nonminority voters that can be allayed by the good example of someone who's muddled through before, like everyone else," DeSipio said.
Menendez's campaign press secretary, Matthew Miller, dismissed the potential loss of votes because of ethnic bias.
He said New Jersey voters broke through barriers when they elected the state's first Jewish senator with Frank Lautenberg in 1982 and its first woman governor with Christie Whitman in 1993. Still, both were of European descent and won by narrow margins.
In their historic races, Lautenberg ran against a woman, Rep. Millicent Fenwick, and Whitman ran against an unpopular incumbent, Jim Florio. Whitman was not the first woman and Lautenberg was not the first Jew to run statewide.
Menendez supporters say Kean has been subtly reminding voters of Menendez's ethnicity with his frequent use of immigration as a wedge issue and his call for English to be legislated as the nation's official language. Kean would deport illegal immigrants and characterizes a Senate bill, which he opposes and Menendez voted for, as providing "amnesty" for them.
Menendez has said that English already is the nation's official language, and that he voted for the bill because it allows for a fair and orderly legalization process.
"Kean has found the Achilles' heel for all Latino candidates," said DeSipio, who has been following the race carefully. "Voters assume they have expansive positions on immigration."
Rebovich said it comes down to the trust factor.
"The issue is meant to put the thought in people's heads: To whom is Menendez ultimately loyal - average New Jersey citizens, or other Latinos?" Rebovich said.
Kean's campaign press secretary, Jill Hazelbaker, said Kean is not using immigration to inject ethnicity into the race.
"To suggest that has racial overtones is something I reject vehemently," she said. Hazelbaker said Kean's hard line on immigration stems from his belief that the country should be a "nation of laws."
The flip side of the Latino factor is that voting trends point to an excited turnout among Hispanics for Menendez because voters are more likely to support a candidate from a similar background.
This election could show the strength and solidity of the Latino vote.
Latinos are a rapidly growing minority. They are the largest minority group in 27 states, including New Jersey, according to the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute, at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Census figures show that about 15 percent of New Jersey residents are Hispanic or Latino origin.
Democracia USA, a nonpartisan voter-registration group, estimated that there are 331,000 Latino voters in New Jersey. It held a six-week voter-registration drive this year, getting 20,500 Latino voters registered in the state.
Jorge Mursuli, Democracia's national executive director, said that the group does not track whether a voter is Democratic or Republican. But the Latinos it registered to vote had a strong sense that this election would be historic.
"Folks in New Jersey were very cognizant of Menendez and were very motivated by that," he said.
If Menendez wins, he will join a half-dozen Hispanics who have won Senate seats in other states. Right now, two other Latinos - Mel Martinez (R., Fla.) and Ken Salazar (D., Colo.) - hold Senate seats with Menendez. New Mexico has had three Latino U.S. senators.
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