Vota por tu Futuro: Partisan Mobilization of Latino Voters in the 2000 Presidential Election.

Figures from the 2000 Census indicate that Latinos are now the largest minority group in the United States. With population projections showing a continued growth in the Latino population over the next 50 years, the major parties are making a push at appealing to this growing segment of the electorate. Given that the preferences of the Latino population do not necessarily fit neatly on the liberal-conservative dimension that the two parties occupy, both parties are trying to woo potential Latino voters. There were over 3000 political advertisements aired in Spanish that were sponsored by the Gore and Bush campaigns in the 2000 presidential election. In addition, there were ads in English that also were targeted to the Latino community. Using individual data merged with political ads, we test whether these efforts influenced Latino vote choice. Drawing from the literature on persuasion and acculturation, we test three models of the effectiveness of three types of ads, each varying in how targeted their appeal was to Latinos. We find that the effectiveness of the ads on the likelihood of casting a vote for Gore (or Bush) was mediated by the individual's partisanship and dominant language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]