Minorities: A growing force in US politics

www.aljazeera.com


Both Republicans and Democrats are mapping out a path to victory for the 2012 election, with each going on the offensive to win over what is known as the minority vote.Minorities are a growing force in US politics - and one that is changing the electoral calculus.

Both Barack Obama, the US president, and the eventual Republican presidential nominee will be pursuing their support in a bid to win the November presidential election.

The minority vote consists primarily of African-Americans and Latinos. But it also includes Asian Americans, Muslim Americans, Native Americans, and many other groups.

The Latino vote is the biggest of all. The number of Hispanics living in the US has been steadily increasing. According to the last census, there are now more than 50 million Latinos in the US.

And the black vote is also important - with one-eighth of the US population falling into this category. Just as with the Latino vote, Candidate Obama carried a large proportion of the black vote on his journey to the White House in 2008.
But President Obama cannot take the minority vote for granted in 2012 - it is considered to be very much up for grabs.

Firstly, many Latinos are disappointed in Obama for failing to reform the immigration system. There are now more deportations than there were under the previous administration.

And the poor economy and high unemployment rate are affecting blacks and Latinos in disproportionate numbers, while the growing wealth inequality between rich and poor has been exacerbated by the number of black and Latino families who have lost their homes through foreclosures.