As the Georgia Latino community continues to grow, so too does its voting presence.
A new 2024 Georgia Latino Vote Report was released earlier this month by GALEO, a Georgia nonprofit advocating for greater civic engagement from the Latino community, and the GALEO Impact Fund. The report details that the state added more than 113,000 new Latino voters to the registry since the 2020 report, a 30 percent increase, bringing the total registered Latino voters to around 498,000 — nearly half a million.
Turnout for the 2024 election cycle came out to more than 262,000 voters, a number “relatively in line” with national averages, according to Kyle Gomez-Leineweber, director of policy and advocacy for GALEO, during an online press conference.
In the 2024 presidential election, the report found that 64 percent of Georgia Latino voters voted for Vice President Kamala Harris, while 35 percent voted for President-elect Donald Trump, who was sworn in today.
In Gwinnett County, the county with the highest Latino electorate throughout the state, both the number of registered Latino voters and percentage of voter turnout reached their highest levels ever at 87,496 and 55.81 percent, respectively.
Cobb County, with the second highest electorate population of Latinos in the state, had 50,637 registered Latinos with an even higher turnout percentage of 57.3 percent. Forsyth County, the ninth-largest Latino electorate in the state, had the highest voter percentage turnout of the top 10 counties by the size of the Latino electorate at 64.91 percent.
Changing districts
After the 2020 census, Georgia Republicans in the State House of Representatives led the charge on redrawing the congressional districts in Georgia.
GALEO and other civic organizations challenged redrawn U.S. Congressional districts, citing gerrymandering leading to a dilution of minority population voting powers in places like Gwinnett.
Previously, as outlined in the report, Gwinnett was “almost entirely in the 7th District.” After redistricting, the minority-majority former 7th Congressional district that encompassed most of Gwinnett was split into the 9th, 10th, 13th, and 4th Congressional Districts.
“A lot has changed with our congressional districts, and that is in no small part because of the redistricting process that we saw happen in the aftermath of the 2020 census,” Gomez-Leineweber said. “GALEO, alongside a coalition of civil rights groups, challenged those maps in court.”
Despite the pushback, ultimately, the courts upheld the redrawn districts.
“Ultimately, we didn’t get the results we wanted, but we move on, we continue to do our work, and we hope to one day obtain a congressional district map that doesn’t dilute the power of our Latino voters and other minority voters in the state of Georgia,” Gomez- Leineweber said.
Jerry Gonzales, founder and CEO of GALEO, echoed that sentiment.
“We saw communities of color leading the population growth in the state of Georgia, but unfortunately the state of Georgia used its efforts to dilute the power of communities of color all across the state of Georgia, unfortunately, in this redistricting process we have,” said Gonzales. “You see the slicing and dicing that happened across the state, not just on the congressional level but also in the legislative levels as well.”
The 9th congressional now has the largest Latino electorate by volume, said GALEO, and is represented by Congressman Andrew Clyde.
Latino-elected officials made gains within Georgia Congress, too.
RaShaun Kemp, citing the newly drawn districts that effectively “drew him out of House District 61,” shifted focus from a Georgia House seat and instead ran and was elected to the Georgia State Senate District 38. Two new Latino state representatives were elected this cycle, as well — Gabriel Sanchez of the 42nd District in Cobb County and the first Latina from Henry County, Mary Ann Santos, for District 117.
Of note is that of the representatives in the Georgia state house from the Latino community, none of them were elected in districts that are majority-Latino, signifying support both in and outside of the community.
“They were elected in a multiracial coalition of voters who came together and voted for electing these representatives,” Gonzales said.
GALEO will celebrate its third annual Latino Day at the Capital at the Georgia Capitol Building next month.
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