Latinos, along with other new immigrants, are not being incorporated into U.S. politics as rapidly as their predecessors, raising concerns about political fragmentation along ethnic lines. In Counting on the Latino Vote, Louis DeSipio uses the first national studies of Latinos to investigate whether they engage in bloc voting or are likely to do so in the future.

To understand American racial and ethnic minority group politics, social scientists have largely relied on a black-white paradigm. DeSipio gives a more complex picture by drawing both on the histories of other ethnic groups and on up-to-date but underutilized studies of Hispanics' political attitudes, values, and behaviors. In order to explore the potential impact of Hispanics as an electorate, he analyzes the current Latino body politic and projects the possible voting patterns of those who reside in the United States but do not now vote.