The Latino vote in Florida is called arroz con mango in the Caribbean. That is, something that at first glance lacks linear logic and contains apparent contradictions. Trump’s visit Hialeah, just outside Miami, last November offers an idea of that complex spectrum of voters. “He talked about the mass deportations he intends to carry out if he is re-elected. And about his plan to repeal Obamacare. The event was full of Cubans, Venezuelans and Colombians who praised him. Most interestingly, that neighborhood has the highest number of zip codes with Hispanics enrolled in Obamacare. “It’s a phenomenon we haven’t been able to explain yet,” says Eduardo Gamarra, director of the Latino Public Opinion Forum program at Florida International University.
The state is a Republican stronghold today and Latin American immigration has contributed greatly to this. Tired of waiting for the fall of Fidel Castro, Cuban exiles began to nationalize en masse in the eighties of the last century. Many joined the party of former President Ronald Reagan, who had campaigned on the saying “Latinos are Republicans, they just don’t know it yet.” This situation created the opinion that Hispanics are predominantly conservative, but surveys refute this.
“When asked which party best represents their values, the majority identify with the Democratic Party. When asked their opinion on socialism, a minority likes it, another minority hates it, but still the majority is in the center; and it’s the same case when they’re asked about capitalism,” says Gamarra, who has been studying the Hispanic vote in the United States for more than 20 years. In fact, Obama’s initial policy toward Cuba led to a significant drop in support for the embargo and drove many Cubans closer to the Blue Party.
The status of immigrants has also made Latinos a population that leans towards a more active role of the state. They are a group highly receptive to government aid. “It is impressive to hear the story among many Trump-supporting Cuban millionaires that the government never helped them, and the truth is that the White House made them a privileged group. I do not criticize it, but it is the reality. A lot was spent on them. They were given all kinds of subsidies so that they could be as successful as they are today,” the expert says. The main concern of Hispanics today is inflation and, secondly, access to health insurance that guarantees them comprehensive health coverage in a country where health care costs are exorbitant. However, these motivations disappear when one enters the field of the country’s foreign policy.
Hispanics in Florida have found in the Republicans’ anti-socialist discourse a way to heal the wounds caused by authoritarian rule in the region. Trump’s years in Washington coincided with the state violence that spread to Nicaragua and Venezuela, and now as he fights for his re-election, with the end of Gustavo Petro’s mandate in Colombia, the return of Lula in Brazil and the continuation of the Central American exodus. “The usefulness of that speech in Florida is already beginning to wear off. Trump is dedicating himself more to insults than to discussing public policy,” says Gamarra. Republicans are not missing a beat to accuse candidate Kamala Harris communistBut surveys indicate that Latinos do not associate social spending with socialism. “When you tell a Hispanic you are going to give him $25,000 Advance Payment Of a household, it’s a form of economic populism, but it’s effective. Harris’s campaign is aimed directly at reducing the cost of living and that’s what field research is telling us about voters’ expectations,” the professor says.
Hispanics from South Florida converge in Miami. Giorgio Vieira (EFE)
Earlier this week, the Democratic mayor of Miami-Dade County (the most populous in the state, with a 70% Latino population), Daniella Levine CavaHe was re-elected to office with nearly 60% of the vote. His four Republican opponents attacked him with the usual insult, “He’s a communist,” but they failed. Even with caution, it’s a sign of what could happen in November. Republicans call any state aid socialism, but two essential programs like Social Security and Medicare date back to the presidency of Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1930s, meaning they are nearly a century old and are part of the American welfare state.
Sectionalism as a factor in the Republican vote
Addressing Hispanic voters means addressing an extremely diverse group, made up of citizens of different origins, social classes, races and times of arrival in the United States. In this sense, the greatest contrasts of the diverse group are reflected in surveys when they are asked about the immigration of other Latin Americans. The latest Study The Latino Public Opinion Forum, dated July of this year, indicates that 23% of Latinos in Florida consider the border and illegal immigration to be the main threat to national security. Similarly, 32% agree with mass deportations. “If you have more education and money, a stable life, children who speak English without an accent, you are privileged. In this sense, I have interviewed Venezuelan community leaders who see their recently arrived compatriots as criminals on the Aragua train. ‘I’m not like the people who are just arriving,’ says Gamarra.
The “ladder theory” may explain the paradox. It is assumed that the first to arrive are the good people and they don’t want more people to come. Once the boat is full, the last person to get on the ladder asks to get on. “This is a phenomenon that has occurred among a variety of immigrant groups, not just Hispanics. We bring forms of racism and classism from our countries and reproduce them here. In June 1980, a Marielito He brought me a folded piece of paper with his brother’s address and telephone number written on it. My job at the time was to try to reunite families, so I called this person and to my surprise he said: ‘Please tell him you didn’t find me, he’s black and I can’t bring him to live with me in Coral Gables’. Turns out they were half brothers. I told him I couldn’t do that… Years later, I met this person and asked him if he had managed to reconcile with his brother, and he told me never. That will give you an idea of what Miami was like. Several years later, when Obama was a candidate, we did focus groups with Latina women in the state, and in one of them a Colombian woman stood up to say: ‘This country is too serious to elect a black man as president.’ These are two anecdotes that experts highlight to illustrate how these forms of discrimination among the Latino community affect voting time.
Donald Trump supporters attend a rally in the Bronx. Spencer Platt (Getty Images)
The emergence of the Kamala Harris phenomenon
The Democratic Party has historically been the party of the white working class. Also of African Americans, and surveys are showing that Latinos who followed the movement of whites towards the Republican Party are now rethinking their relationship with the Democratic Party. “Not so much in Florida, but the vote of Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in favor of the Democrats could be decisive in this election. There is a group of wealthy Mexicans in Texas that is similar to Latinos in Florida, but in California, New Mexico and Arizona, the Mexican community is very Democratic. We also saw a movement of African-American men towards Trump’s party, but surveys are telling us that all these movements have stopped with the arrival of Kamala Harris,” Gamarra says of the study he is currently conducting and whose results will be released on October 22.
The image of a Biracial candidates Vance has jumped into the campaign with a bang. In contrast, Trump has chosen a running mate (J.D. Vance) who, instead of highlighting his multicultural marriage, has aligned himself with Christian nationalism to drum up votes from those who see diversity as a threat. “The Harris phenomenon is attracting voters who find themselves in a quandary, seduced by Trump’s nationalist discourse but fearful of the racism he represents. There will be independents in the five states that will define the election: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, Arizona. But Kamala is going to win the national vote, no doubt about that,” the professor concluded.
Ultimately, the definition of the vote is who mobilizes and who does not. 75% of Latinos registered to vote confirmed their participation in the November election, in which a high presence of anti-Trumpism and pro-Trumpism is expected. However, in the 2020 and 2022 elections, records show that Latinos did not go out to vote. The effective participation rate was around 50%. What will happen in what both candidates have called an election that will mark the lives of Americans? The cards have already been cast in Florida and the rest of the country.