In an election where an unprecedented rush to vote before Election Day is raising Democrats’ hopes of defeating President Donald Trump in his must-win home state, a key segment of Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s Florida winning coalition is bucking the trend: Puerto Ricans.
Democrats are on pace to shatter records for ballots cast before Election Day. But the party’s turnout has been disproportionately older and whiter. And while Hispanic turnout is up over 2016, those numbers are being driven by conservative-leaning Cuban-Americans in Miami rather than left-leaning Puerto Ricans in Central Florida.
Neither trend has been unexpected, and Biden’s campaign isn’t sounding an alarm.
But to win Florida, the former vice president will need a stronger showing over the final week of the election from Puerto Ricans, part of a growing group of non-Cuban Hispanics, often with no party affiliation, capable of swinging the election.
The election “is not going to be decided by the Democrats or the Republicans,” said former Republican state Rep. Bob Cortes, whose former district is in purple and increasingly Hispanic Seminole County. “It’s going to be completely and absolutely decided by the independent and Hispanic vote.” Keep Reading>>
