The Democrats' Hispanic Problem [View all]

[brooklynite]

Politico:

Rick Scott has spent years courting Hispanics as if his political career depended on it. He took Spanish lessons while serving as Florida’s Republican governor, and reached out to Democratic-leaning Puerto Ricans by visiting their island after Hurricane Maria—not once, but eight times. He chose a Cuban-American lieutenant governor, and showed up in Cuban strongholds like Hialeah so often that locals joked that el gobernador must be one of them. He displayed his solidarity with Venezuelan exiles at El Arepazo restaurant in Doral—not once, but at six separate events. “The first time we went to El Arepazo, I had never met the owner,” says Scott’s Hispanic communications director, Jaime Florez. “We went back so many times, I swear to God, he’s now one of my best friends.”

It turned out that Scott’s political career did depend on his diligent courtship of Latino voters, because on Election Day, they extended it. Despite the national Democratic wave, Scott unseated U.S. Senator Bill Nelson by 10,033 votes, and a key factor was Scott’s energetic pursuit of Hispanic voters neglected by his Democratic opponent. The Hispanic vote was also critical for Scott’s Republican successor as governor, Ron DeSantis, who also chose a Cuban-American running mate, Jeanette Nuñez, and also squeaked out a narrow victory, in his case over Democrat Andrew Gillum. Democrats clearly have a Hispanic problem in America’s largest swing state, a problem that could help President Donald Trump win a second term in 2020.

Nationally, overwhelming margins among Latino voters helped drive Democratic victories in states like California, Nevada and Arizona. But in Florida, older Cuban-Americans who mostly support Republicans voted in droves, while turnout for younger Cubans, Puerto Ricans, and other non-Cuban Hispanics who skew Democratic lagged—and did not skew as Democratic as expected. Exit polls found Democrats won only 54 percent of the Hispanic vote, down from 62 percent in 2016 and 58 percent in 2014. Florida Democrats did replace two Cuban-American Republicans in majority-Hispanic congressional districts, while electing several new Latino state legislators and local officials. But the top-of-the-ticket losses were brutal wake-up calls for Democrats who hope to flip Florida in 2020, and are counting on the state’s fastest-growing demographic to help them flip it.

Before the midterms, the spin from Democrats was that Trump was their best Hispanic organizer. He was supposedly mobilizing opposition to Republican allies like Scott and DeSantis by demonizing immigrants, bungling the response to Hurricane Maria, and tailoring his message exclusively to his right-wing base. But while Trump fired up Hispanics in the Southwest, especially Mexican-Americans who objected to his push for a border wall, Florida Hispanics represent a much broader cross section of Latin America. A majority of them do object to Trump, but marginally improved turnout by non-Cuban Hispanics was overshadowed by much higher turnout from Trump’s base of older Cuban exiles as well as whites, while the blue wave of Puerto Rican hurricane evacuees that some Democrats thought could change the politics of Florida forever never materialized.