Conn. says 9 percent of its voters are Hispanic

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Connecticut's secretary of the state says that Hispanics account for nearly 9 percent of the people registered to vote in the state.

Secretary of the State Denise Merrill said Tuesday that her study of registration data and U.S. Census information on Spanish surnames indicates there are more than 176,000 registered voters of Hispanic origin in Connecticut.

The majority of those voters — roughly 90,000 — are registered as Democrats, while about 14,500 are registered as Republicans.

Bridgeport and Hartford have the highest number of registered Hispanic voters with about 25,000 in each city.

The last Census in 2010 showed the state's Hispanic population had grown nearly 50 percent to about 479,000 over the previous decade. Hispanics now make up 13 percent of Connecticut's population.