Florida was once America’s most important swing state, but key changes in one county reveal that Democrats now have a big problem on their hands
November 2, 2024 6:00 am(Updated 6:02 am)
IN MIAMI – Hamming it up in a bar on Halloween, Osvaldo Perez dons his Donald Trump mask and gives a thumbs up between mixing margaritas at the Mexican restaurant where he works in Miami’s South Beach.
The 54-year-old Cuban is not as much of a Trump fan as his costume might suggest, but he has no doubt about who he will vote for on Tuesday.
“I don’t love Trump, but I don’t like Kamala,” he told i. “Because Kamala is a communist. I think Trump will stop the wars.”
In Miami, a glitzy beachside city of skyscrapers, lush palms and art deco hotels, support for Republicans is on the rise. It’s part of Florida’s largest county, Miami-Dade, which is home to more than 2.6 million people and is nearly 70 per cent Hispanic or Latino and 17 per cent Black, according to the latest US census.
Yet with a median income of $64,215 (£49,778) – about 15 per cent below the rest of the country – many are feeling the pinch from skyrocketing inflation and will be voting with their wallets come Tuesday.
“I pray to God next Tuesday [Trump’s] back,” says Miguel Lopez, 43, a construction worker by night and Uber driver by day. Born to Puerto Rican parents in the city’s Wynwood district – a street art mecca that has recently gentrified into high-rise apartments with rooftop pools, yoga studios and coffee shops – he is frustrated at the lack of government help at home while billions is spent on foreign wars.
“I don’t know what America they live in, because in the real world, we’re hurting,” he told i. “People are hurting out here and the government just does nothing. We’re struggling.”
Lopez said that while his family were Democrats, he admired Trump’s resilience and business savvy. He sees him as an outsider to the political establishment, who tells it like it is.
“Trump is not the same … His failures have proven that to us,” he said. “We always have that fight, that dog in us. He tells us how it is, that’s why I love Trump.”
How Republicans took control of Florida
Florida was once regarded as the ultimate swing state, most notably in 2000 when George W Bush won by only 537 votes against Al Gore, and a recount handed him the presidency. Barack Obama won it by slim margins in 2008 and 2012, before Trump won it back in 2016 by a margin of just over 1 per cent. In 2020 he extended this lead to 3.3 per cent against Joe Biden.
Central to Republican success has been Miami Dade county, historically home to a large Cuban population, which arrived in the US after fleeing Fidel Castro’s regime. It now includes people from all over the Americas, with 54 per cent of those living here born overseas, according to the latest census.
In 2020, although the county voted Democrat, Trump scored an extra 200,000 votes in Miami-Dade than in the previous election, while Florida Governor Ron DeSantis also secured a 32 per cent swing in his favour in the 2022 Midterms. Now, Republicans are hoping to capitalise on this trend and have Trump become the first Presidential candidate to take the county since George HW Bush beat Michael Dukakis in 1988. Consolidation of votes in Miami-Dade could benefit Republicans nationally as the state’s Electoral College footprint has already grown from 25 votes in 2000 to 30 in 2024.
Aubrey Jewett, associate professor at the School of Politics, Security and International Affairs at the University of Central Florida, said changes in Miami-Dade had transformed the overall picture for Florida and revealed weaknesses for the Democrats.
“If Democrats want to get it back into the game and become more competitive again, they have to figure out how to appeal to Hispanic voters in Miami-Dade,” he said.
Professor Jewett puts the rise in support for Trump down to two main things: Republicans successfully branding the Democrats as socialists, and a lack of support for progressive issues like abortion and LGBT rights among Hispanic voters. In addition, Trump’s rhetoric on immigrants appears not to have had the effect Democrats hoped and Republicans feared.
In the 2016 Presidential campaign, Trump frequently made derogatory comments about Latino people, most notoriously when speaking about Mexicans. Last week, at Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City, speakers used hate speech, including one a comedian who called Puerto Rico an “island of garbage” and accused Hispanics of failing to use birth control.
“When [Hispanic voters in Miami-Dade] look at Hispanics and others coming over the border today, they don’t relate and think ‘that’s similar to the experience my parents and grandparents had’.
“Instead, they are already assimilated… and are concerned about these new immigrants that are coming, the ones that are coming illegally, so I think that is a big part of the story,” he said.
Kevin Carbrera, Trump’s former campaign director for Florida in 2020, predicts his former boss will sweep the state by “double digits” next Tuesday.
The 34-year-old son of Cuban immigrants also serves as Commissioner for Miami-Dade’s district 6 and said voters in his region are largely older, working-class Hispanics who “come from countries where we have already seen these policies from the left fail”.
“We’ve seen open borders fail, we’ve seen lack of law and order fail, we’ve seen where one president tries to indict and put in jail his political opponents fail, we’ve seen all of these things fail. What we want is an opportunity to reach the American dream and we think that President Trump and his policies provide that opportunity.”
At the Westchester regional library in Carbrera’s district, a steady stream of cars pulls into the parking lot at the busiest early voting site in the county. Early figures show Republicans account for 70 per cent of ballots cast so far, about 15 per cent higher than in 2020 in a trend that has put Democrats on edge.
Cuban-American Armando Font, 64, who arrived in the US aged seven on a “freedom flight” from Cuba, said he voted for Trump because despite talking “a lot of trash”, he believed he would be stronger economically.
“Inflation has skyrocketed,” he said, listing his extra expenses from insurance to groceries to utility bills. “Whatever goes up never comes down.”
For Nethan Watson, who runs a bar in Miami’s Little Havana, where staff were preparing for an Angels and Demons Halloween night, Kamala Harris was the better choice to lead the US internationally.
“We live in a country that is highly scrutinised and looked on as being a major power and a leader. When other countries look at us, what do they think? I’m pretty sure we know what they thought in 2016.”
The 48-year-old said that ultimately, he saw the Democrats as the “lesser of two evils”.
“I don’t want Trump’s evil, I’d rather take Kamala Harris’s evil. I’d at least like someone who would smile in my face while they stab me in the back.”