According to Pew Hispanic Center, Latinos made up 52.9 million of the US population in 2011, or if you want to talk about it in percentage, it's around a 16.7 However this year which is an election year for the United States has reached a new record and going back to the Pew the number of eligible Latino voters is of 23.7 millions more than double than in 2011.

The Huffington Post estimates over 4 million voters, since the last Presidential elections of 2008, making current President Obama the first modern-day Demoncrat to win a majority of the Latino votes with a 67 percent when the GOP nominee, Arizona Senator John McCain only reached a 31 percent.

When speaking of the growth of the Latino vote in recent years, we find ourselves realizing that the ethical group that has grown the most is the Mexican Americans who according to the Pew, is around a 65% and this has changed the political dynamics, since democratic strategists are hoping to grow the Latino population in solid red states like Arizona and Texas, to blue in future election cycles.

We see this in the current political campaigns such as Rommey's who according to a Fox News Latino poll released in February has made many efforts to try to win over Latino voters and states, that the former Massachusetts governor has tried to soften his immigration stance somewhat since moving into the general election, coming out in support of a military-only DREAM Act and finally saying Monday night he would not rescind Obama's decision to defer deportation for most immigrants under 31 who were brought here illegally before the age of 16 and have lived in the United States continuously for five years with clean criminal records. Romney avoided answering direct questions about the issue five times when Bob Schieffer of 60 Minutes attempted to probe the candidate's immigration plans in June, after Obama first made the deferred deportation announcement.

"When we ask people who they trust more to fix the economy moving forward, they're telling us by a 2 to 1 margin that they favor Democratic policies," Matt Barreto of Latino Decision mentioned earlier this month. "I really think Republican leaders need to talk to Latino voters about the issues that are in the community, instead of assuming that all Latino voters blame Obama for the state of the economy, because that's just not the case."

The latest edition of the weekly tracking poll of likely Hispanic voters by Latino Decisions and ImpreMedia had Romney at a new low of 21 percent compared to Obama's 73 percent.

Commonly the Latino vote has been known as the "Sleeping giant" and this is because there are millions of Latinos living in America with age to vote, many of them are not registered. Would this be the year that the giant wakes up? To be honest I believe that if it does, that would determine the 2012 United States Presidential Elections.

Joy.Ruvalcaba@sandiegored.com