Which states will have the most influential Latino vote in the next decade?

[ottermax]

I have heard this question asked on a few political podcasts I listen to and find that the pundits sound wildly off. For example Carlos Odio on a recent FiveThirtyEight podcast suggested that the most important states in terms of the Latino vote are:

1. Michigan
2. Wisconsin
3. Georgia
4. Then a smattering of other swing states - North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, and... Florida...

Wisconsin in particular is a state I keep hearing about, but as far as I'm aware the vote share of Latinos is incredibly low still in Wisconsin, but maybe I am missing something?

Some states I feel are underdiscussed in terms of Latino voters include:
1. Oregon
2. Rhode Island
3. Connecticut
4. Washington
5. Utah
6. Idaho
7. Kansas
All of the states I've listed have a greater Latino proportion of the population than Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, NC, etc.

What are you top states that each party should pay attention to in the next decade regarding the Latino voting bloc?

[ملكة كرينجيتوك]

Someone posted on here that WI's relative closeness in 2020-PRES was partly due to significant R swings in Latino-heavy parts of Milwaukie.

https://twitter.com/jdjmke/status/1324430664209473536
Even in Milwaukee- in a swing state, where their votes weren't taken for granted.

Anecdotally, when I was text banking for the Biden campaign I noticed quite a few potential voters with Hispanic sounding names in AZ and WI either refusing to answer (possibly due to having already been reached out to?) or giving R-friendly responses. I remember one of my WI respondents was a Latino teen who was a bit troll-y but signaled willingness to support Trump.

I think the Mexican/Chicano vote is most important in OR and WA for Congressional races and State Legislature races. Both states are D enough for Latinos not to be able to swing statewide elections outright, although FWIW others in the Leipverse and the pundit community have commented on a dropoff in turnout/D support in OR-6 and the Salem OR area this year. I agree with Carlos Odio in that the Latino vote is strategically more important in perennial swing states.

I do wish Equis and/or the podcast episode could've gone more in detail on the Acela Corridor Puerto Rican vote. It would've been nice to hear more about what happened in Metro NYC, but I guess no one really has comprehensive data on that right now.

[ProgressiveModerate]

All states have some share of Latino voters, and in a close election, they could be decisive.

However, this question asks what states will have the *most influential* Latino vote.

This may seem a bit obvious, but in a GE, Hispanics in AZ, NV, NM, and TX will be very important. Especially in NV, and TX, but also in AZ and NM, Hispanics tend to turn out at significantly lower rates than their white counterparts and tend to have more extreme swings in turnout across cycles. Whichever party can tap into these unreliable voters or curren non-voters is going to have a lot of power in the southwest.