Introduction

Latinos are the second fastest-growing voting group in the United States. Between 2020 and 2024, the Latino eligible voter population is projected to increase by 12%, or 4 million people.¹ As the Latino voter population has increased, Latino representation in elected office has followed suit, with the number of Latinos in any local, state, or federal elected office doubling since 2000.² Nevertheless, Latinos are still severely underrepresented in politics. While 20% of the general U.S. population is Latino, only 2% of all elected officials in the country are Latino.³ 

As the 2024 general election approaches, this data brief provides an overview of the current state of Latino representation in Congress with deeper insights into their party,  age, sex, religious affiliation, and political ideology.

Historic Latino Representation in the U.S. Congress

1. The first Latino man was elected to Congress more than a century before the first Latina woman.

The first Latino member of Congress—Joseph M. Hernández—was a territorial delegate from Florida elected in 1822.⁴ The first Latino voting member of the House of Representatives, Romualdo Pacheco (CA), began his first full term in 1879.⁵ The first Latino man in the Senate, Octaviano Ambrosio Larrazolo (NM), was elected in 1928.⁶ 

Meanwhile, the first Latina member of the House, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL), was elected in 1989⁷ and the first Latina senator, Catherine Cortez Masto (NV), was elected in 2016.⁸

In 1976, five Latinos in the House of Representatives—Herman Badillo (NY), Baltasar Corrada del Rio (PR), Eligio “Kika” de la Garza II (TX), Henry B. González (TX), and Edward R. Roybal (CA) —established the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which now consists only of Democrats.⁹ In 2003, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (FL) established the Congressional Hispanic Conference, a similar organization for Republicans.¹⁰

2. While Latino representation remained sparse until the 1950s in the House and the early 2000s in the Senate, it has steadily grown since then.

While growth in Latino representation in Congress was initially slow, the number of Latino representatives grew from one in 1950 to 19 in 2000 (see Figure 1).¹¹ Between 2000 and 2023, that number more than doubled from 19 to 49.¹² The number of Latino senators increased from none in 2000 to six in 2022 (see Figure 2).¹³ 

Figure 1. Number of Latino Representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives, 41st-118th Congresses (1869-2025)

Source: Data for the 41st-117th Congress are from Molly Reynolds, “Vital Statistics on Congress,” Brookings Institution, November 21, 2022, available online. Data for the 118th Congress as of August 2024 are from Daily Kos Elections, “The Ultimate Daily Kos Elections Guide to All of Our Data Sets,” Daily Kos, September 21, 2022, available online; Congressional Hispanic Caucus, “Members,” available online; and Congressional Hispanic Conference, “Members,” available online. Data for the 118th Congress at the beginning of the session are from NALEO Education Fund, “Election 2022 Races to Watch, Post-Election,” 2022, available online.

Figure 2. Number of Latino Senators in the U.S. Senate, 41st-118th Congresses (1869-2025)

 

Sources: Data for the 41st-117th are from Molly Reynolds, “Vital Statistics on Congress,” Brookings Institution, November 21, 2022, available online. Data for the 118th Congress are from Daily Kos Elections, “The Ultimate Daily Kos Elections Guide to All of Our Data Sets,” Daily Kos, September 21, 2022, available online; Congressional Hispanic Caucus, “Members,” available online; and Congressional Hispanic Conference, “Members,” available online.

 

Latino representation has continued to grow in the House of Representatives during the 115th to 118th Congresses—which span the years 2017-2025—along with representation of Black Americans and other non-white groups.¹⁴ Since 2017, Latino representation has increased by 3.1 percentage points, Black representation by 2.2, and Asian and Pacific Islander representation by 0.7 (see Figure 3). The share of non-white individuals in the House has increased from 22% in 2017 to 29.6% in 2024.

Figure 3. Racial and Ethnic Distribution of Members of the 115th-118th U.S. House of Representatives (2017-2025)

Note: The total non-white population includes Middle Eastern and Native American representatives.

Source: Data are from Daily Kos Elections, “The Ultimate Daily Kos Elections Guide to All of Our Data Sets,” Daily Kos, September 21, 2022, available online.¹⁵ Data for the 117th Congress at the beginning of the session are from NALEO Education Fund, “National Directory of Latino Elected Officials,” 2021, available online.¹⁶ Data for the number of Latinos in the 116th Congress are from NALEO Educational Fund, “Record Number of Latinos Sworn in to 116th Congress,” (press release, January 3, 2019), available online.¹⁷ Data for the 115th Congress were compared to a list of Latino representatives from NALEO Education Fund, “Election 2016 Races to Watch, Post-Election Results,” 2022, available online.¹⁸

 

3. Democratic Latinos outnumber Republican Latinos in the U.S. Congress, both historically and currently.

In the 118th Congress, 35 of the 49 Latino representatives are Democrats, and 14 are Republicans (see Figure 4). This difference is less stark in the Senate, where there are only six Latinos–four Democrats and two Republicans (see Figure 5).

Figure 4. Number of Latino Representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives by Political Party, 41st-118th U.S. Congresses (1869-2025)

Sources: Data for the 41st-117th Congresses are from Molly Reynolds, “Vital Statistics on Congress,” Brookings Institution, November 21, 2022, available online. Data for the 118th Congress are from Daily Kos Elections, “The Ultimate Daily Kos Elections Guide to All of our Data Sets,” Daily Kos, September 21, 2022, available online; Congressional Hispanic Caucus, “Members,” available online; and Congressional Hispanic Conference, “Members,” available online.

Figure 5. Number of Latino Senators in the U.S. Senate by Political Party, 41st-118th Congresses (1869-2025)

Sources: Data for the 41st-117th are from Molly Reynolds, “Vital Statistics on Congress,” Brookings Institution, November 21, 2022, available online. Data for the 118th Congress are from Daily Kos Elections, “The Ultimate Daily Kos Elections Guide to All of Our Data Sets,” Daily Kos, September 21, 2022, available online.

Latino Representation in the 118th Congress

4. As of July 2024, there were 49 Latino representatives and six Latino senators in the 118th Congress, representing 11% and 6% of each chamber, respectively.¹⁹

The number of Latinos in Congress reached a record high in the 118th Congress (see Table 1). The six senators were Alex Padilla (CA), Marco Rubio (FL), Catherine Cortez Masto (NV)—the first and only Latina senator—Bob Menendez (NJ),²⁰ Ben Ray Luján (NM), and Ted Cruz (TX).

Table 1. Latino U.S. Senators, 118th Congress (2023-2025)

Source: Data are from Daily Kos Elections, “The Ultimate Daily Kos Elections Guide to All of our Data Sets,” Daily Kos, September 21, 2022, available online.

5. Only 12 states have a Latino representative, and California has the most Latino representatives in the U.S. House.

Only 12 states have one or more Latino representatives (see Figure 6). The states with the most Latino representation in the House are California, Texas, and Florida (see Table 2). In one state (Illinois), Latino representation in the House roughly matches the Latino share of the state’s voting age population. However, the share of Latino representatives exceeds the state’s Latino Citizen Voting Age Population (CVAP) in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Washington, and West Virginia (although West Virginia is a unique example where there are only two representatives, and one is Latino). Only in California, Texas, and New Jersey are Latinos underrepresented in the House. 

Figure 6. Number of Latino Representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives by State, 118th Congress (2023-2025)

Note: States with no Latino representatives are in grey.

Source: Data is from Daily Kos Elections, “The Ultimate Daily Kos Elections Guide to All of Our Data Sets,” Daily Kos, September 21, 2022, available online.

Table 2. Latino Share of the U.S. House of Representatives by State, 118th Congress (2023-2025)

Note: We focused on the Citizen Voting Age Population (CVAP) rather than the total population to include only those eligible to vote for their representative. The total number of current representatives does not represent the total number of congressional seats in each state. Texas has 37 total House seats and New Jersey has 12, but both of them have one vacant seat as of August 2024.

Sources: Data on total number of representatives are from Daily Kos Elections, “The Ultimate Daily Kos Elections Guide to All of Our Data Sets,” Daily Kos, September 21, 2022, available online. Data on CVAP are from the Latino Data Hub, available online. Data were compared to a list of Latino representatives from NALEO Education Fund, “Election 2022 Races to Watch, Post-Election,” 2022, available online.

6. Latino representatives in the U.S. House tend to be younger than representatives of other racial or ethnic groups.

The median age of all representatives is 59 compared to a median of 50 for Latinos, who are the youngest across the House’s major racial and ethnic groups (see Figure 7). Both the oldest and youngest members of the House are Latino: Maxwell Frost (D-FL, 10th District) is 27, and Grace Napolitano (D-CA, 31st District), former Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, is 87.²¹ Among all representatives, the median age of women is slightly younger than that of men (58 years vs. 60 years, respectively). In contrast, Latino men are younger than Latinas in the House. The median age for Latino men in the House is 50 compared to 55 for Latinas.

Figure 7. Median Age of Representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives by Gender, Race, and Ethnicity, 118th Congress (2023-2025)

Note: Numbers for Middle Eastern and Native American are not shown because there are less than five members of each gender for those racial and ethnic groups.

Sources: Data are from Daily Kos Elections, “The Ultimate Daily Kos Elections Guide to All of Our Data Sets,” Daily Kos, September 21, 2022, available online.

 

7. The number of Latinas in the House is increasing, contributing significantly to the growth in women representatives overall.

The gender composition of racial and ethnic groups in the House of Representatives is shifting, with women making up a growing proportion across most groups (see Figure 8). Latinas, in particular, have experienced the fastest growth. Between the 115th and 118th Congresses, the share of women among Latino representatives rose from 26% to 37%, surpassing the increases among white (15% to 23%) and Black (40% to 49%) representatives. Overall, Latinas are driving significant growth in women’s representation in Congress.

 

Figure 8. Share of Women in the U.S. House of Representatives by Race and Ethnicity, 115th-118th Congresses (2017-2025)

Note: Numbers for Asian or Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern, and Native American representatives are not shown because there were fewer than 10 women in those groups for all four listed Congresses.

Source: Data is from Daily Kos Elections, “The Ultimate Daily Kos Elections Guide to All of Our Data Sets,” Daily Kos, September 21, 2022, available online.

 

8. Latino representatives in the U.S. House are predominantly Catholic, as opposed to representatives of other racial and ethnic groups who are primarily non-Catholic Christians (see Table 3).

The majority of white (61%), Black (91%), and Asian American or Pacific Islander (AAPI) (67%) representatives are non-Catholic Christian, while 71% of Latino representatives are Catholic.

 

Table 3. Religious Affiliation of Members of the U.S. House Representatives by Race and Ethnicity, 118th Congress (2023-2025)

Source: Data are from Daily Kos Elections, “The Ultimate Daily Kos Elections Guide to All of Our Data Sets,” Daily Kos, September 21, 2022, available online.

 

9. As the proportion of Latinos in a congressional district’s eligible voter population increases, so does the frequency of electing a Latino representative (see Table 4). However, not all districts with Latino representatives have predominantly Latino populations.

Of the 49 Latino representatives in the House, 11 come from districts where Latinos make up less than 25% of the eligible voter population. While only 3% of districts with less than a quarter Latino population elected a Latino representative, this figure rises to 23% in districts where Latinos account for up to half of the population, and to 76% in districts that are up to three quarters Latino. All districts where Latinos constitute more than three quarters of the population elected a Latino representative.

Table 4. Share and Number of Latino Representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives by District Citizen Voting Age Population (CVAP), 118th Congress (2023-2025)

Note: This table shows the percentage of congressional districts that have Latino representatives based on the share of the eligible voter population that is Latino (Latino CVAP). For example, 3% of districts with less than 25% Latino CVAP have a Latino representative, accounting for 11 of the 48 total Latinos in the House.

Source: The Latino share of a district’s CVAP is based on the 2018-2022 5-Year American Community Survey (ACS) data, compiled by Daily Kos Elections, “The Ultimate Daily Kos Elections Guide to All of Our Data Sets,” Daily Kos, September 21, 2022, available online. Data on number of Latino representatives are from Daily Kos Elections, “The Ultimate Daily Kos Elections Guide to All of Our Data Sets,” Daily Kos, September 21, 2022, available online.

10. Latino representatives are generally more liberal than white representatives but are the least liberal of all non-white racial and ethnic groups (see Figure 9).

AAPI and Black representatives, for example, tend to vote in alignment with liberal political ideology more often than Latinos. In addition, while women are significantly more liberal than men among all major racial or ethnic groups, including Latinos, the difference is most stark among white representatives.

 

Figure 9. Political Ideology of Representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives by Race or Ethnicity and Gender, 118th Congress (2023-2025)

Note: We measure political ideology using NOMINATE scores, which measure ideology on a spectrum of liberal to conservative on economic issues, -1 being very liberal and +1 being very conservative. Numbers for Middle Eastern and Native American are not shown because there are less than five members of each gender for those racial and ethnic groups.

Source: The demographic data of representatives come from Daily Kos Elections, “The Ultimate Daily Kos Elections Guide to All of Our Data Sets,” Daily Kos, September 21, 2022, available online. Political ideology scores come from “Voteview: Congressional Roll-Call Votes Database,” 2021, available online.

Conclusion

Latinos are changing the makeup of Congress. They are growing among the general population and shifting Congress to become younger, more representative of women, and more ideologically liberal. While more Latino representatives are elected in states with larger Latino populations, such as California, Texas, Arizona, and Florida, Latinos have also proven themselves to be successful candidates in other states as well—even in states where Latinos are a small minority of the general population. 

The U.S. is changing and so is the Latino electorate. As record numbers of Latinos become eligible and turn out to vote in the 2024 elections, we will continue to watch how Congress changes in turn.

Methodology

About the Datasets

We used secondary data from Daily Kos,²² the Brookings Institution,²³ and Voteview to conduct our analysis.²⁴ Daily Kos provided information on the race and ethnicity of members of Congress and their districts; Brookings Institution offered data on Latinos in Congress over time; and Voteview supplied political ideology scores. For a comprehensive list of current Latino members of Congress, we referenced the NALEO Education Fund,²⁵ the Congressional Hispanic Caucus,²⁶ and the Congressional Hispanic Conference.²⁷

Defining Race, Ethnicity, and Religion

To address discrepancies in the terms “Hispanic” and “Latino” across these sources, we exclusively use “Latino,” defined as:

• An immigrant or descendant of immigrants from Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Central America, or South America. This excludes individuals from European countries such as Portugal or Spain and is loosely based on the Census definition of “Hispanic or Latino.”
• Individuals of mixed heritage or those who self-identify as Latino in combination with any racial group. Self-identification as Latino is confirmed by membership in either the Congressional Hispanic Caucus or the Congressional Hispanic Conference, provided the first condition is met.

Our definition of Latino is therefore narrower than most definitions of “Hispanic or Latino.” When discussing the citizen voting age population (CVAP), we use the term “Hispanic” to match the terminology used in the U.S. Census Bureau’s CVAP data collection.

The data from Daily Kos provides in-depth demographic and socioeconomic information on members of the 115th-118th Congresses. We use these data to create race and ethnicity breakdowns for current and recent congresses. Daily Kos classifies individuals by more specific groups than most sources, such as Middle Eastern and Pacific Islander, and provides exact ethnic backgrounds, including country of origin and Native American tribe. We simplified these race and ethnicity categories by excluding origin, resulting in mutually exclusive categories: White, Black, AAPI, Latino, Middle Eastern, and Native American (our definition of white excludes Middle Eastern individuals). Representatives with multiple races or ethnicities were re-categorized as monoracial based on the races and ethnicities we intended to analyze. For example, individuals with mixed heritage that includes Latino are categorized as only Latino, and those with Black heritage but not Latino are categorized as only Black. 

In our analysis, all members of Congress identified as either a woman or a man, resulting in a binary gender category.

Data on members’ religious affiliation also came from Daily Kos, which categorizes religious affiliation by specific denomination. In our analysis, we collapsed some denominations and then recoded religious affiliation into the following groups: Catholic, non-Catholic Christian (which includes Protestants and every other non-Catholic Christian denomination), Jewish, Other, and Unknown. We specifically separated Catholics from non-Catholic Christians because previous studies have indicated that politicians with the Catholic faith have different backgrounds and voting tendencies than other religious groups.²⁸ 

Measuring Political Ideology

In addition to party affiliation, we measure political ideology on a spectrum of liberal to conservative to offer a more nuanced perspective of ideological differences within party lines. To measure political ideology, we used Voteview’s NOMINATE scores, which consider every House vote throughout U.S. history to measure representatives’ political ideology in relation to one another.²⁹ We used the first dimension of the score, which measures ideology on a spectrum of liberal to conservative on economic issues, -1 being very liberal and +1 being very conservative. The second dimension captures social issues, such as civil rights and immigration. NOMINATE scores are very widely used across media, such as Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight,³⁰ and in scholarly work, albeit not without some criticism.³¹ We ultimately opted to use NOMINATE scores because many of those criticisms arise when using the scores over long periods of time—all the way back to the 1920s and the New Deal Era—while our analysis of political ideology only concerned the 118th Congress. Additionally, there has yet to be another measure as reputed for political ideology.³² 

Appendix

Table A1. Number of Representatives of Each Racial or Ethnic Group for the 115th to 118th Congresses

Table A2. Number of Women Representatives of Each Racial or Ethnic Group for the 115th to 118th Congresses

Acknowledgments

This research was possible through core operating support for the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute provided by the California Latino Legislative Caucus. The author would like to thank Rosario Majano for fact checking the findings, Misael Galdámez and Julia Silver for their helpful reviews of earlier drafts and code, Xalma Palomino for proofreading, Jessica Blackband and Marissa Esthimer for copyediting, and Rodrigo Dominguez-Villegas for his thoughtful feedback.

Endnotes

¹  Jens Manuel Krogstad, Jeffrey Passel, Abby Budiman, and Anusha Natarajan, “Key Facts About Hispanic Eligible Voters in 2024,” Pew Research Center, January 10, 2024, available online.

²  Sindy Benavides, “Another Barrier to Latino Representation: Intimidation of Election Officials,” Brennan Center for Justice, January 29, 2024, available online.

³  Ibid.

⁴ U.S. House of Representatives Office of the Historian and Office of the Clerk, “Hispanic Americans in Congress,” 2013, available online.

⁵ While originally elected in 1876, Pacheco’s election was eventually overturned and he was unseated in 1878. His first full term began after he was elected again in 1879. U.S.; House of Representatives Office of the Historian and Office of the Clerk, “Hispanic Americans in Congress,” 2013, available online.

⁶ Ibid

⁷ GovInfo, “Ileana Ros-Lehtinen,” accessed May 31, 2024, available online.

⁸ Sam Cabral, “U.S. Elections: Will Latinos Oust Catherine Cortez Masto, the First U.S. Latina Senator?”, BBC, November 5, 2022, available online.

⁹ Congressional Hispanic Caucus, “History of the CHC,” accessed May 6, 2024, available online.

¹⁰ Congressional Hispanic Conference, “About Us,” accessed May 6, 2024, available online.

¹¹ Molly Reynolds, “Vital Statistics on Congress,” Brookings Institution, November 21, 2022, available online.

¹² The Brookings Institution only has data until the 117th Congress, which ended in 2023. For the 118th Congress, we use numbers from Daily Kos and NALEO.

¹³  This number includes Bob Menendez (NJ), who resigned on August 20, 2024.

¹⁴ We analyze the 115th to the 118th Congresses because that is the extent of the data available from Daily Kos, our primary source for detailed characteristics on each congressmember.

¹⁵ All Daily Kos data are from the end of the congressional session, therefore the data do not necessarily count all or only the representatives who were elected in November. For example, representatives appointed or elected through a special election before the conclusion of the session are listed in place of either their preceding officials or vacant seats. 

¹⁶ Two members of the House had resigned before the end of the session—Antonio Delgado (D-NY, 19th District) and Filemon Vela (D-TX, 34th District). Mayra Flores—who is Latina—won the special election to replace Vela, and is listed in the Daily Kos data but not in the NALEO National Directory of Latino Elected Officials. Delgado’s successor, Pat Ryan, was not Latino. Brian Mast is also recorded as Latino in the Daily Kos data but not by NALEO. Therefore, both datasets report the same number of Latinos in the 117th Congress, 39. For further analysis looking past only race, we use the updated Daily Kos data.

¹⁷ NALEO reports that 38 Latinos were sworn into the 116th Congress. Mike Garcia (R-CA, 25th District), who is Latino, won a special election replacing Katie Hill in May 2020. Unlike NALEO, we also consider Brian Mast Latino, given his heritage and membership in the Congressional Hispanic Conference. Therefore, we use Daily Kos data, which counts a total of 40 Latino representatives.

¹⁸ Daily Kos reports data for representation at the end of the 115th session. One member of the House had resigned before the end of the session—Xavier Becerra (D-CA, 34th District). Jimmy Gomez—who is also Latino—won the special election to replace Becerra, and is listed in the Daily Kos data but not in the NALEO Post-Election results. Brian Mast is also recorded as Latino in the Daily Kos data but not by NALEO. For our analysis, we use the Daily Kos data, which lists 35 Latino representatives.

¹⁹ This includes Rep. Greg Lopez (R-CO, 4th District), who won his seat through a special election in June 2024 and will not be seeking a full term. The remaining 48 were elected in the 2022 midterm election, and 47 of them are listed in a press release by NALEO. In addition to those listed, we include Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL, 21st District), who is half-Mexican and a member of the Congressional Hispanic Conference. At the time of analysis there were three vacant seats in the House, so we only examined the 432 current members. The 47 members elected in 2022 and listed by NALEO, in addition to Mast and Lopez, brings our total number of House representatives to 49; Brian Mast, “Race Doesn’t Matter as Long as We Get the Job Done,” June 16, 2023, available online.

²⁰ At the time of analysis, Bob Menendez was still a member of the Senate. Since conducting our analysis, he resigned, effective August 20, 2024, and was replaced by George Helmy.

²¹ Maxwell Alejandro Frost Representing Central Florida, “Maxwell’s Story,” accessed May 21, 2024, available online; City News Service,Congresswoman Grace F. Napolitano, “About,” accessed May 21, 2024, available online;  “Rep. Grace Napolitano announces retirement at age 86,” NBC Los Angeles, July 8, 2023, available online.

²² Daily Kos Elections, “The Ultimate Daily Kos Elections Guide to All of Our Data Sets,” Daily Kos, September 21, 2022, available online.

²³ Molly Reynolds, “Vital Statistics on Congress,” Brookings Institution, November 21, 2022, available online.

²⁴  Jeffrey Lewis, Keith Poole, Howard Rosenthal, Adam Boche, Aaron Rudkin, and Luke Sonnet, “Voteview: Congressional Roll-Call Votes Database,” Voteview, 2024, available online. 

²⁵  NALEO Education Fund, “Election 2022 Races to Watch, Post-Election,” 2022, available online.

²⁶ Congressional Hispanic Caucus, “Members,” accessed August 14, 2024, available online.

²⁷ Congressional Hispanic Conference, “Members,” accessed August 14, 2024, available online.

²⁸ Gregory A. Smith, “8 Facts about Catholics and Politics in the U.S.,” Pew Research Center, September 15, 2020, available online.

²⁹  Jeffrey Lewis, Keith Poole, Howard Rosenthal, Adam Boche, Aaron Rudkin, and Luke Sonnet, “Voteview: Congressional Roll-Call Votes Database,” Voteview, 2021, available online. 

³⁰  Tia Yang, Cooper Burton, Mary Radcliffe, Katie Marriner, and Amina Brown, “The 8 Types of Democrats and Republicans in the House,” FiveThirtyEight, May 1, 2024, available online.

³¹  Devin Caughey and Eric Schickler, “Substance and Change in Congressional Ideology: NOMINATE and Its Alternatives,” Studies in American Political Development 30, no. 2 (2016): 128-146. 

³²  Nolan McCarty, “In Defense of DW-NOMINATE,” Studies in American Political Development 30, no. 2 (2016): 172-184.