More than 50 percent of Nevada Latinos voted during the 2020 election, the second highest rate among swing states but still significantly trailing white voters, according to new research from the University of Southern California’s Center for Inclusive Democracy. 

The report released last week found that Nevada’s 408,000 Latinos voters made up about 20 percent of the eligible voters in 2020, but represented only 15 percent of those who actually cast a ballot. With about 77 percent of Nevada voters casting a ballot in 2020, turnout was at least 50 percent higher among white voters compared to people of color. Nye and Storey counties had the highest percentage of Latino turnout that year, with the more populated Clark and Washoe counties lagging behind. 

Only Florida, with a 58 percent Latino turnout in 2020, had a higher rate than Nevada among swing states, according to USC. Michigan had the lowest, with only 33 percent of Latinos voting that same cycle.

Looking ahead to the 2024 election, efforts to boost turnout rates for Nevada Latinos may prove key to the aspirations of Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, both of whom are working to attract Latino support. Harris has helped consolidate Latino support in Nevada after replacing President Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket, while Trump has made overtures to members of the Culinary Union Local 226 and touted his proposal to end taxes on tips.

Recent polling from Fox News indicated that Harris is winning Nevada Latinos by 13 percent over Trump, well behind Biden’s 26 percentage point lead with those voters in the 2020 election — a finding backed up by other recent polls. 

Despite turning out at a higher rate than other swing states, Nevada’s Latino population still votes significantly less than white voters, especially as voters tend to skew younger and identify as independent — demographic traits that suggest a greater population of “low-propensity" voters. In 2020, at least six states saw a lower presidential race margin of victory than the number of eligible Latinos who did not vote.

Part of the problem is that campaigns will “parachute into” highly competitive states such as Nevada before the election, but often fail to make “deep contact” with communities, Mindy Romero, director of the USC Center for Inclusive Democracy, said in an interview. For more sustained Latino mobilization, Romero said she believes there needs to be more funding for “on-the-ground” community organizations that can form longer-term connections with voters.

These groups, however, “don't have the resources to meet the scale of need,” Romero said. With many operating as nonprofits, they often rely on donations and government funding to get by. 

Campaigns often rely on something called “likely voter models,” Romero noted, to determine which constituents to reach out to. These “likely voters,” however, tend to be overwhelmingly white and make higher incomes, meaning that the electoral impact of people of color and those who are less affluent may be underestimated. 

The Harris campaign told The Nevada Independent that it has launched new Nevada field offices in areas where the majority of residents are Latino, using these spaces to host community service and cultural events, such as bilingual financial literacy workshops and family movie nights. The campaign says it launched these efforts in March, months before Biden dropped out of the race. 

The Trump campaign did not respond for comment. 

The USC research found that turnout rates aren’t just lower among Latinos. Only about 47 percent of Black voters in Nevada participated in the 2020 election, while 37 percent of Asian Americans did.

But their turnout rates and overall population has been growing. Between 2016 and 2020, the number of Black and Latino voters in Nevada increased by more than one-third, with turnout rates growing by 6.7 percentage points among Black voters and 4.5 percentage points among Latinos, according to USC. Asian Americans in Nevada saw a turnout increase of more than 10 percentage points. 

“If investment and mobilization were to occur, then so many more Latinos and voters of color would have a larger, more representative say in the electorate,” Romero said. 

To compile the research, USC used voter files and publicly available eligible voter estimates from the U.S Census Bureau and from the political data vendor Catalist.