Republicans have been gaining ground state-wide in Florida for the last several months, even in Miami-Dade County, a liberal stronghold that could be captured by a GOP gubernatorial candidate for the first time in 20 years. Recent polls show popular republican incumbent Governor Ron DeSantis reportedly leading democrat Charlie Crist by a solid majority not only in Miami-Dade, but across the state.
The Washington Post shared, “There’s no way around it. It used to be a toss-up state, but I would say it’s not even close anymore,” said Mauricio Restrepo, a 39-year old Colombian American teacher, who is a registered Democrat. “Restrepo predicts that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who is running for reelection this year, is going to win in Miami-Dade County: ‘All the Republicans are going to win for sure.’”
The GOP has gained ground with Hispanic voters in the state’s most populous county, where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans. Miami-Dade has more than 576,000 Democrats, 487,000 Independents, and 436,000 Republicans, according to county registration statistics.
“A Republican victory this November in Miami-Dade, where Hispanics make up almost 60 percent of the electorate, would be a stunning turnaround in a county that Hillary Clinton won by almost 30 points just six years ago. DeSantis himself lost the county by more than 20 points four years ago,” reported The Washington Post.
DeSantis is a popular incumbent who has enjoyed a strong first term, during which he has been outspoken on illegal immigration and President Biden’s destruction of the nation’s economy and horrible climate-change agenda. This has helped place DeSantis as a potential top GOP contender for 2024. Recent polls have shown that a majority of voters approve of how DeSantis has handled the Covid pandemic and other challenges facing Floridians.
“DeSantis is leading Crist by 51 percent to 44 percent with Florida’s Hispanic voters, according to a new Telemundo/LX News poll,” The Washington Post reported. “In southeastern Florida, which includes Miami-Dade, 50 percent of Hispanic voters are backing DeSantis, compared with 46 percent supporting Crist, the poll found.”
“Gov. DeSantis is winning in Miami because his agenda is popular and his opponents are a walking arroz con mango,” said Giancarlo Sopo, a Republican media strategist who led Trump’s 2020 national Hispanic advertising, using Cuban slang that means “a messy situation” (literally, “rice with mango”). “The Democrats could earnestly address their issues with Hispanics, but they prefer to attribute their losses to ‘disinformation.’ This helps them save face with donors, but there’s an electoral price to being so out of touch with reality.”
In addition to the popularity of Governor DeSantis, voters are just not happy with the Democratic candidate, Charlie Crist. “I don’t like everything about Ron DeSantis, but Charlie Crist is a joke,” Noel Chavez, a truck driver, told The Washington Post. “I like Democrats outside of Florida, but the Democratic Party just doesn’t have good leaders in Florida.
To assist the GOP in South Florida, the Republican National Committee has been investing in year-round engagement with local residents and soon-to-be first-time registered voters. They opened a Hispanic community center in Doral last year that aimed to deepen the party’s connection with the community, with such programs as sessions for immigrants to prepare for the civics portion of the naturalization test.
Those efforts appear to be paying off for DeSantis, with a projected win in Miami-Dade. The last GOP candidate for governor to accomplish that was former governor Jeb Bush 20 years ago. Bush is fluent in Spanish, and his wife is Latina.
Democratic consultant Fernand Amandi told The Washington Post a DeSantis win in Miami-Dade “means that Florida’s electoral votes, probably in the short term, hopefully not in the long term, will be safely in the hands of the Republican Party in presidential years,” Amandi added. “At the presidential level, it will be the declaration of Florida as a solid Republican state and no longer a battleground or swing state.”
To add to Amandi’s comments is a recent report that Republicans have made strong gains “for Florida this midterm cycle, including a huge 9-to-1 advantage when it comes to registering new voters in the months leading up to Nov. 8.”
The Washington Examiner shared, “As of Friday, there were more than 5.28 million registered Republicans in Florida compared to 4.97 million Democrats. Those numbers represent 86,376 more Republicans than those registered to vote in the August primary, compared to an increase of just 9,830 Democrats across the same time frame.”
With the overwhelming support for Republicans in new voter registrations and the concerns of the Democratic stronghold Miami-Dade possibility of going Republican in next week’s midterms, it appears now that the Democrats in Florida can’t stop the “red wave” that is on the horizon.
