Haitian American voters may drop Trump
Presidential candidate Donald Trump promised to be Haitian-Americans’ “biggest champion.” Now they might become one of his biggest problems in Florida.
As president, Trump has offended many Haitian-Americans by refusing to support their top priority: renewal of Temporary Protected Status, a humanitarian program that has allowed Haitians to legally live and work in the U.S. after a series of calamities befell their country.
“I think that President Trump has probably made a lot of enemies in the Haitian community now that he didn’t have before when he was running,” said Sharon D. Wright Austin, a political science professor and director of African-American Studies at the University of Florida.
Their sentiments could make a difference. The Census Bureau estimates that more than 400,000 people of Haitian ancestry live in Florida, with more than seven of 10 in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami Dade counties.
In 2017, the Haitian population in Central Florida was estimated at 33,000 by the Migration Policy Institute.
UF political scientist Daniel Smith estimates that at least 106,000 Haitian-born naturalized U.S. citizens are registered to vote in Florida.
His figures do not include U.S.born people of Haitian ancestry.
Numbers that large can influence a close election. In the four most recent statewide contests for president and governor, the result was divided by about 1 percent of the vote, or an average of 84,475 votes.
An estimated 20 percent of voters of Haitian ancestry went for Trump in 2016, Austin said. They aren’t a monolithic voting bloc, unlike African-American voters, who overwhelmingly cast their ballots for Democrats.
Many Haitian-Americans are more conservative than AfricanAmericans. Austin has studied different groups as part of the research for her book, “The Caribbeanization of Black Politics: Race, Group Consciousness, and Political Participation in America,” published earlier this year.
During his campaign, Trump told Miami’s Little Haiti that he would be “your biggest champion.” But in January, it was widely reported the president used a vulgarity to describe people from Haiti and African nations, though he and the White House later denied he applied the term to Haiti.
“I think, for me, I’m so angry I’d rather not sleep,” said Guithele Ruiz-Nicolas, president of the Haitian-American Club in Broward. “I’m working so that we can see something different. The anger that we feel, for me it has energized me. There is a need for change. I don’t care if I go to an event every night because I know that we have to change.”
Ronald Surin, vice president of the Haitian-American Democratic Club in Broward, agreed.
“The community is very aware of the situation. They understand the value of voting and voting for the right candidates,” he said.
“We know that with this administration there is no willingness to address the needs of our community. We are going to come out. We are motivated.”
Still, Republicans aren’t ceding the Haitian-American community to the Democrats.
“You have to work to win their
votes, but they’re not 100 percent in lock step with the Democrat[ic] Party,” said Michael Barnett, chairman of the Palm Beach County Republican Party and vice chairman of the Republican Party for Florida. “They can be swayed, and we’ve made lots of inroads and proven that we can get Republicans elected statewide with their help. It’s like any other group of voters; they need to have representation in both parties.”
He’s been at the forefront of efforts to persuade Haitian-American voters in South Florida to pick Republican candidates, through major public events and lower-key outreach on Creole-language radio and cultivating relationships with community leaders, especially in conservative churches.
In 2016, Barnett orchestrated candidate Trump’s meeting with Haitian-Americans in Little Haiti and made sure the visit received extensive coverage in Haitian community media outlets. Barnett — and some Democrats — said those moves helped Trump and the Republicans make inroads among Haitian-American voters in 2016.
Barnett said he doesn’t think his work in the Haitian community is for naught because of the Trump presidency.
He’s spoken with statewide Republican candidates, pressing them to campaign in the Haitian community, and said they understand “just how important this demographic is, and what we were able to do to help them [statewide Republican candidates] win in 2016 and 2014.” And he worked with Gov. Rick Scott’s 2014 re-election effort to help him with Haitian-Americans in Palm Beach County. Scott is ineligible to run for re-election this year because of term limits; he’s running for the U.S. Senate instead.
Lucdwin Luck, a Republican activist whose parents emigrated from Haiti and was born in Fort Lauderdale, said his party would continue to reach out to the Haitian community, and candidates like Scott would be rewarded for their efforts. Austin doubts that Haitian voters will support Scott as strongly as they did Trump.
Democratic elected officials also recognize the importance of the Haitian-American community. The annual luncheon of Broward’s Haitian-American Democratic Club attracted two members of Congress, three state legislators, the Broward County mayor and several city commissioners from throughout the county — many of whom aren’t Haitian-American.
Samson Borgelin, who emigrated to the U.S. from Haiti in 1981, became a citizen in the late 1990s and is now a North Lauderdale city commissioner, said Trump’s campaigning in Little Haiti helped him. Since then, he said, Trump has alienated “even those who supported him. Haitians are very upset.”
“This transcends party,” he said. “I’m sure there’s going to be a great number of Haitians going to the polls.”