The Case for Ethnic Voting Among Latinos: When Ethnicity Trumps Party.

In November 2001, Orlando Sanchez came within 10,000 votes of being elected the first Latino mayor in the history of Houston. Sanchez, a registered Republican, ran against incumbent Mayor Lee Brown, a registered Democrat. Exactly one year before the Sanchez-Brown election, voters in Houston cast ballots in the contentious 2000 Presidential election. Overwhelmingly, Latino precincts throughout Houston voted in favor of Al Gore, the Democrat and in 2001, President George W. Bush played a prominent role in the Sanchez ad campaign. Despite considerable ties to the Democratic Party, Latinos in Houston crossed-over and voted for the Republican Sanchez. Although city elections are often non-partisan, they are more likely to feature a variety of ethnic candidates and thus provides the ideal setting to weigh in on a growing debate in American ethnic politics, does ethnicity trump partisanship? This paper uses precinct level data from five elections in Houston, Texas to compare ethnic and partisan voting patterns for Latinos, Blacks, and Whites. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]