Biden overtures come too late for Hispanic vote
‘The Democratic Party just assumed that they were going to get that vote. They constantly promise and it’s just broken promises’
‘America will never be a socialist country!” That was the chant ringing out among Cuban American voters in Miami in the early hours yesterday as it became clear that Hispanic voters in Florida had handed Donald Trump a crucial victory there.
“The Cuban community in Miami has been through a communist regime,” said Marti Mees, a Cuban immigrant and Republican activist, as she explained why it had come out in force behind Mr Trump. “We believe in law and order, we believe in family values and we believe in freedom. That’s what President Trump offers.”
It is Cuban exiles such as Mrs Mees whose support for Mr Trump saw the president collect Florida’s critical 29 electoral college votes by a greater margin than in 2016. This success was the result of four years of aggressive courting of the Cuban community, launching fierce attacks on Joe Biden, his Democratic opponent, who, said the president, was being controlled by radical socialists in his party.
Mr Trump has underscored this with regular trips to Miami, where roughly half of the population hails from Latin America, to announce new crackdowns on the authoritarian leadership in Cuba and Venezuela.
He frequently contrasts his own hardline stance on Cuba with that of Mr Biden, claiming the Democrat was a “sellout to the Castro regime” during a Bay of Pigs event at the White House in September.
The results from Florida on Tuesday prove the president’s efforts have paid off. Cuban Americans showed up in force for Mr Trump on election day, eroding Mr Biden’s margins in Miami-Dade, a critical county that Hillary Clinton won by 30 points in 2016, but Mr Biden carried by just seven.
The dramatically reduced share in Miami meant Mr Biden was unable to offset Mr Trump’s wins in more conservative parts of the state.
At a sombre results night party in Miami’s hip Wynwood district, Democrats began to blame the poor performance on the Biden campaign’s neglect of Hispanic voters.
David A Duckenfield, who ran Barack Obama’s Hispanic outreach during the former president’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns, said it had been clear to operatives in Miami for months that Mr Biden had failed to do enough to win Latino community backing.
He said Republican attempts to portray Mr Biden as a radical socialist had proved highly effective: “I don’t think his campaign was quick enough to dissociate himself with that label and that really hurt him with Hispanics. He should have done more to define his principles and ideals and not be defined by the other side.”
Alexandria Ocasio-cortez, the congresswoman and liberal firebrand tipped as a potential future party leader, was more blunt: “We’ve been sounding the alarm about Dem vulnerabilities [with] Latinos for a long time,” she tweeted. “The necessary effort simply hasn’t been put in.”
Sensing danger in recent months, the Biden campaign had expanded its Hispanic outreach in Florida, hiring field staff from within local communities and tailoring Spanishlanguage adverts to Puerto Rican communities in Orlando and Tampa, and Cuban and Venezuelan groups in Miami.
But many Democratic strategists have whispered that the efforts simply came too late. “You can’t build a grassroots effort overnight,” said Tangela Sears, a Miami-based political consultant who worked on the Biden campaign. The leadership just wasn’t here.”
Others said it was clear Mr Biden had taken the support of Hispanics for granted, focusing his efforts instead on winning white working class voters in the Rust Belt states.
At a “Latinos for Trump” results party in Miami on Tuesday night, many of Mr Trump’s supporters echoed those criticisms.
“[Trump] has done a lot for minority communities,” said Ingrid Trigo de Serrano, a 32-year-old import broker. “The Democratic Party just automatically assumed that they were going to get that vote. They constantly promise and it’s just broken promises.”
This appears to be borne out by exit polling in Florida, which suggests that it is not just Cuban Americans, who are traditionally more conservative, who boosted Mr Trump. Exit polls conducted by NBC News suggest that around 30 per cent of Puerto Ricans – who typically lean more Democratic – also backed the president. Support for Mr Trump among Venezuelans, Colombians and Nicaraguans in the state also improved on 2016.
Democrats have also blamed their losses in Florida on a campaign of misinformation targeted at Hispanic voters in the state.
Widely shared adverts capitalised on the fears of Latinos who had fled failed socialist regimes in their home countries, painting Mr Biden as a puppet of a radical Left movement.
Pictures of the Democrat talking to Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan leader, in 2015 were also shared, alongside messages suggesting Mr Biden would prop up socialist regimes.
Whatever the cause of the poor results, the Democrats were agreed on one thing yesterday morning: they can no longer take the Hispanic vote for granted.