ABSTRACT
Since parents serve as their children’s most important source of partisan cues, the large wave of recent immigrants and their offspring who are without relevant partisan attachments, represents a vast reservoir of uncommitted and low-turnout voters. These voters could have a profound impact on the shape of the electorate, depending on when and how they are fully mobilized into the partisan and participant electorate. Since the 1965 Immigration Act more than 26 million legal immigrants have entered the U.S. Some have become citizens, others have not, but few came with germane partisan cues or guides for themselves or, perhaps more importantly, for their more than 30 million children who are born in the U.S. and thus are automatically American citizens. Add to this the 12 to 20 million undocumented, mostly Hispanic/Latino immigrants who have high birth rates and about 25 million American-born children who similarly lack partisan guides. What, if anything, will bring these 50 million naturalized Americans or American citizens with foreign-born parents into the active electorate? And what factors will determine the direction of their partisan attachments?
