Approximately 6.6 million Latinos voted in the 2010 midterm elections, says Pew, noting that it was a record turnout for the Hispanic population. And Latinos made up a larger share of the electorate in 2010 than in any previous midterm election, representing 6.9 percent of all voters, up from 5.8 percent in 2006.

What the numbers reflect is a great under-representation of Latinos as a voting population. In 2010, 16.3 percent of the nation’s population was Latino, according to the U.S. census, but only 10.1 percent of eligible voters and less than 7 percent of actual voters were Latino.

The Pew report suggests the gap is the result of the large number of youth and non-citizens in the U.S. About 34.9 percent of Hispanics are younger than 18, and 22.4 percent are not U.S. citizens.

The percent of Latinos who are eligible to vote (42.7 percent) is much lower than eligible whites (77.7 percent), African-Americans (67.2 percent), and Asians (52.8 percent). Even among those eligible, Hispanics go to the voting points at a lower rate than other groups. In 2010, 31.2 percent of eligible Hispanic voters say they voted, compared with 48.6 percent of eligible white voters and 44 percent of black eligible voters, according to Pew.

The Washington Post predicts that under-representation among Latinos means their political influence “will fall short of their demographic strength by years, if not decades.”

The disregard for the power of the Hispanic vote is perhaps reflected in policies that negatively affect this group in the areas of immigration, education and entitlement programs.

A recent Gallup poll showed that Obama’s support among Latinos has decreased by 25 percentage points since the start of his presidency.

And as the Post points out, Obama needs Hispanic support during his re-election; yet thus far, Democrats have been unable to enact immigration policies favored by the majority of Latinos. The promising DREAM Act — creating a path to citizenship for children brought into the country illegally — failed in Congress late last year.

A Washington Post blog also notes that even if Latino voter turnout does not pick up, their electorate share will continue to grow at the rate of the population and thus — eventually — will become more important to those seeking office, both Democrats and Republicans.

That was the overall message of a panel of immigration experts, pollsters and advocates who convened for a lunchtime talk on the subject at the Center for American Progress today.

On one hand, as CAP fellow Ruy Teixeira pointed out (and has shown in a recent study), the growing Latino population, the aging of white conservatives and the increasing political role of the Millennial Generation (born between 1978 and 2000) suggests that the culture wars should become a thing of the past — and so should the opportunity for conservatives to use immigration as a wedge issue.

But it’s not so easy. In recent elections, conservative Republicans have continued to use fears of immigration to galvanize voters against Democrats, though they were rarely successful, noted Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America’s Voice. Still, both Democrats and Republicans this year haven’t been willing to advance an immigration reform bill, and President Obama, despite election promises to Latino voters to advocate for reform in his first year in office, has admitted that’s not going to happen. And experts say it will only be more difficult as midterm elections approach.

“If immigration reform doesn’t get approved, it will it become a wedge issue,” predicted Anna Navarro, national co-chair of John McCain’s Hispanic Advisory Council and the lone Republican on the panel. “It will make a comeback. Not anti- and pro-, but rather, ‘you promised, and you didn’t deliver.’ It would be a good issue for Republicans.”

Perhaps, but it won’t lead to “a rush to the Republican party,” predicted Sharry. Still, it could dramatically reduce turnout among Latinos for Democrats in future elections.

Republicans are still identified as the restrictionists, though, said E.J. Dionne, columnist for The Washington Post. “As long as the loudest Republican voters are identified as restrictionist, the message Latinos get is that the Republican party is broadly hostile to them.”

But Democrats themselves are split on the issue, between more conservative Democrats and business groups who favor a large guest worker program, and more liberal Democrats and labor advocates who say that undermines American workers, and the answer is to create a path to citizenship.

“This is a very hard task,” said Dionne. “It’s not simply a matter of guts; it takes a lot of political and policy intelligence to put this thing together.”

Ultimately, all sides agreed that both parties need to unite behind bipartisan leadership and come to an agreement on this issue, or risk losing supporters.

“I think Republicans are waiting for this White House and this Congress to lead,” said Navarro. “The best thing Republicans can do is come up with an agreement and get rid of the issue once and for all. Get rid of the issue, and go back to what Ronald Reagan believed: that Latinos are Republicans, they just don’t know it yet.”

To appeal to those remaining thin slices of the electorate, a new video campaign has launched to pitch Sen. Barack Obama.  The project is aimed at all those folks in the middle — be it the spectrum or of making up their minds — and it is from, naturally, “people in the middle.”

Academy Award-winning director Errol Morris shot several ads with these self-proclaimed swing voters, in a campaign for People for The American Way. (Which is not, by the way, in the middle.) All the spots are on a new YouTube channel, MiddleforObama, in addition to the website peopleinthemiddleforobama.org.

I don’t find this very gripping, but that’s irrelevant, since I am definitely not part of the target audience:

PRODUCTION NOTES: These confessionals start out personal and broad, as voters explain their perspectives. As the background piano music slowly rises, the speakers bear down on their topic, describing Obama’s strengths in terms of judgment and temperament. While the campaign’s official themes are referenced, from “hope” to inspiring young Americans, issues like the economy and Iraq are left unmentioned.