On Tuesday, New Jerseyans are going to cast our votes in the presidential primary elections.

We’re part of a big electoral picture that day. Some are calling it Super Tuesday,or even “Super Duper Tuesday” because even more states than usual—22—are holding their primaries that day.

But I think it might as well be called “Súper Martes,” because of the huge influence Latinos are going to have. Latinos make up a sizeable chunk of the population in many of these states, including California (36%), New York (16%), and Texas (35%). And of course, our community has a real presence in New Jersey, where around 1-in-10 eligible voters are Latinos.

The strength of our numbers means the country is paying more attention than ever to how Latinos are going to vote. But there’s one thing we can’t forget to do: we actually have to get to the voting booth.

I can’t stress enough how important it is for us to go out and vote. The candidates are already paying an unprecedented amount of attention this year to the issues facing our community, and if we show our strength in the primary, they will pay even more attention in the general election campaign.

Candidates are already seeing themselves rewarded for engaging the Latino community. Sen. Hillary Clinton is the overwhelming favorite of Latinos across the country, giving her a powerful electoral advantage, because of her great history interacting with our community and fighting for the issues most important to us over the course of her 35 years in public life.

Traveling around the state with Hillary, I’ve seen, once again, that what matters to Latinos matters to all New Jerseyans and all Americans: improving our education system, expanding access to health care, strengthening the economy and creating jobs, reducing crime, reforming our immigration policies, and bringing a quick and honorable end to the war in Iraq. At the end of the day, the Latino agenda truly is the agenda of America.

I have also seen an excitement over holding a key to the White House, an enthusiasm about our historic candidates that reflects the continuing increase in Latino voter participation rates that we see every election year. This is tremendously encouraging for our community, but we have to make it count on Tuesday.

If our votes are counted this Tuesday, and our votes are counted this November, then our voices will be heard, and we’ll remind this country how powerful and positive those voices can be.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 4th, 2008 at 5:43 am and is filed under Politics, New Jersey, Blogroll, Immigration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.