The Washington Post noted that Democrats are worried about a dramatic realignment in usually liberal Miami-Dade County toward the Republican Party.
The liberal daily emphasized that support for Democratic candidates is dwindling in Florida’s most populated county, notably for the Democratic contender for governor, Rep. Charlie Crist (D-FL), who is well behind Republican incumbent Gov. Ron DeSantis in the polls.
Noel Chavez, a 49-year-old independent voter in the county, told the Post that he will vote for both DeSantis and incumbent Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) in this year’s election cycle, with inflation and the economy being his primary concerns.
I don’t agree with everything Ron DeSantis stands for, but Charlie Crist is a joke, Chavez remarked. The Democratic Party in Florida just doesn’t have competent leaders, but I’m a fan of Democrats in general.
Despite Hillary Clinton’s almost 30-point 2016 victory and Ron DeSantis’s over-20-point 2018 loss, Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign made substantial gains within the Hispanic population, the county’s most prevalent ethnic demographic, and cut the margin to just over seven points.
Since then, Hispanic support for Republican candidates has skyrocketed, which might result in one of the Sunshine State’s largest triumphs for the Republican party in recent history.
According to a recent survey conducted by Telemundo/LX, DeSantis has a 51 percent to 44 percent edge among Hispanic voters, and 72 percent of Cuban-American voters support the sitting governor. Breitbart News noted that the biggest concentration of Cuban Americans is in the Miami metropolitan region.
56% of Hispanic voters who were born in a nation other than Mexico or Cuba backed DeSantis over Crist in the most recent election. In addition, among Hispanic voters who are not affiliated with either major party, DeSantis is ahead of Crist by a score of 56% to 34%.
While Democrats remain ahead of Republicans overall in voter registration in Miami-Dade, Hispanics in the county now register at a higher rate for the Republicans.
This realignment is happening at all levels of government, not just the national and state levels. Breitbart News reported this past summer that a conservative majority had taken control of the Miami-Dade County School Board, making it the largest school district in the country with a conservative-majority board.
Giancarlo Sopo, the Republican media strategist who led Trump’s 2020 national Hispanic advertising, argues that while Trump and DeSantis deserve credit for expanding the GOP tent to include new Hispanic voters in Miami and across the state, unpopular Democrat policies are simultaneously not resonating with Hispanic voters.
As Sopo put it to the Post, “Gov. DeSantis is winning in Miami because his program is popular and his opponents are a walking ‘Arroz con mango,'” a Cuban expression for “a complicated situation.”
Democrats might do better with Hispanic voters if they stopped blaming “disinformation” for their losses. “But there’s an electoral price to be paid for being so out of touch with reality,” he said, “while this lets them save face with funders.”
Once registered Democrat told the Post that she is pessimistic about the Democratic Party’s chances of retaking the governorship and Rubio’s Senate seat since Republican support is increasing in Miami-Dade while Democrat support is sinking.
No evasion of responsibility is possible. Educator Mauricio Restrepo stated, “It used to be a toss-up state, but I would say it’s not even close anymore.”
It’s a definite thing that “all the Republicans” will prevail, she said.
As election day, November 8, draws near, various surveys show that both DeSantis and Rubio have huge leads over their Democrat competitors, suggesting that Restrepo’s forecast may prove right.