The Economist April 2nd 2022 Special report Florida 9Hispanics and black people expected to vote blue. Today more
than a third of Florida’s voters are nonwhite. Hispanics account
for 17% of voters, nonHispanic black people 13% and Asians 2%.
Yet Hispanics are more diverse than in other American states,
where they tend to be of Mexican origin, and there are plenty of
blacks from the Dominican Republic, Haiti and elsewhere who do
not share other American black people’s Democratic leaning. De
mography is not destiny in Florida, at least not yet.
Democrats’ weakness can be explained by four factors. First is a
disorganised and disempowered state party. As outsiders intent
on taking power in the 1990s, Republicans invested time and mon
ey in voter registration and fielding candidates. Democrats hadbeen in power for so long in Florida (as in
much of the South) that they did not devel
op a formal and strategic organising struc
ture to match the Republicans. If Demo
crats could do only one thing to change
their fortunes, they would invest more in
voter registration, says Mr Schale. Recently
Democrats announced they would spend
$2.5m to boost registration, but that is a
piddling amount considering the vast size
of the state.
A second, connected factor is weaker
fundraising. Democrats struggle to raise
the same amount as Republicans, which is
encapsulated in this year’s governor’s race.
As of February 1st Mr DeSantis had raised
$81.5m, nine times more than the com
bined total of the three leading Democratic
candidates. “Democrats are always a day
late and a dollar short,” says Amy Mercado,
a Puerto Rican Democrat who was elected
as Orange County property appraiser in
2021 and formerly served in the legislature.
A third explanation is Republicans’ suc
cessful messaging to Hispanics. “Florida
has been the showcase for where you see
the Hispanic vote trending a little bit Re
publican,” says Ms MacManus of the Uni
versity of South Florida. Republicans type
cast Democrats as socialists, a dirty word
for many in the state who fled socialist re
gimes. They are not just Cubans, who ac
count for 29% of eligible Hispanic voters in
Florida. Around 8% of Hispanic voters are
Colombian, 3% Venezuelan and 3% Nicara
guan. “The Hispanic vote is a problem for
Democrats,” says Annette Taddeo, the state
senator and candidate for governor, who
thinks Democrats “are not fighting back
enough against the socialist label”. Puerto
Ricans are a growing force in Floridian pol
itics as well. Tens of thousands moved to
Florida after Hurricane Maria in 2017. Puer
to Ricans relocating from other American
states tend to register as Democrats, but
those from the island often choose nopar
ty affiliation, making them more open to
Republican outreach.
A fourth issue is the arrival of trans
plants from other American states. Around
41% of “babyboomers” in Florida, aged 57
76, register as Republican, against 37% as
Democratic, and they turn out in greater
numbers. To see this, take a walk around The Villages, a retirement
community that was America’s fastestgrowing metro area in the
past decade and may double in size in the next 15 years. Its 80,000
residents zoom around on golf carts and have an activity schedule
that might have been written by a general. An essential campaign
stop for Republican presidential candidates, The Villages voted
overwhelmingly for Mr Trump. Residents often feel like “they’ve
paid their dues and taxes wherever they’ve come from so their kids
could go to school, and they don’t have an allegiance here,” ex
plains Cris Andersen, vicechair of the Sumter County Democrats,
who lives in The Villages. “They want to reduce government
spending for other people, just not them, so they don’t want toD
emocrats arelikely to do badly in
November’s midterm elections,
which have a tendency to pummel the
party in power. In Florida only 39% of
voters approve of Mr Biden (below the
national average), so Republicans are
likely to win the offices that matter. Two
races will attract interest for what they
reveal about Floridians’ priorities and the
diversity of their candidates.
Marco Rubio, Florida’s senior senator,
is running for a third term. The son of
Cuban immigrants, Mr Rubio rose to
prominence as a Tea Party conservative
with hawkish foreignpolicy views. He is
likely to run against Val Demings, a black
Democratic congresswoman who gained
attention as a manager during Donald
Trump’s impeachment trial in 2020 and
had served as Orlando’s police chief.
The contest will be a “marquee race”
that is the most competitive in Florida,
predicts the University of South Florida’s
Susan MacManus. Mr Rubio has more
name recognition, but Ms Demings isexciting national donors. Mr Rubio
outpaced Ms Demings last year by raising
$24.3m for his reelection, against Ms
Demings’s $20.7m, but she took in more
than he did in the three most recent
quarters. The two candidates’ back
grounds could encourage Hispanics and
blacks to turn out, and Ms Demings’s
lawenforcement chops will make it hard
to portray her as soft on crime (although
that will not stop Mr Rubio from trying).
Floridians will also vote for their next
governor. With a 53% approval rating and
a brimming campaign chest, Mr DeSantis
(pictured) is likely to win reelection. His
rise from littleknown congressman to
governor surprised many, since he won
the Republican primary in 2018 only after
Donald Trump offered an unexpected
endorsement. Mr DeSantis has since
pushed to the right, hoping to win the
attention of primary voters in Iowa and
New Hampshire by supporting a ban on
abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Yet
as a potential rival for the 2024 nomina
tion, he must balance his ambitions
against keeping in with Mr Trump.
Mr DeSantis’s Democratic opponent
will be chosen in a primary in August.
Among those running are Charlie Crist, a
former Republican governor from 2007
to 2011; Nikki Fried, the agriculture com
missioner; and Annette Taddeo, a state
senator. Mr Crist and Ms Fried have name
recognition, but the more compelling
candidate is Ms Taddeo. As a Colombian
immigrant and smallbusiness owner,
she could easily drum up Hispanic sup
port by challenging some of Mr DeSan
tis’s policies, such as barring businesses
from requiring vaccines for their staff.
According to Ms Taddeo, “That’s what
they do in Cuba: the government tells
you what you cannot do.”Ballot box
Two races to watch in 2022