6 November 14-20, 2024 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com New Times | music | cafe | culture | Night+Day | news | letters | coNteNts | COLOR DECODED How Trump turned Miami-Dade red on Election Day. BY ALEX DELUCA N ot only did Donald Trump win back the presidency in an un- precedented political comeback, but the former and fu- ture president also managed to win big in Miami-Dade County last night — earning the distinc- tion of being the first Republican presidential candidate to win the once-Democratic stronghold since 1988. Despite being impeached twice, convicted of 34 felony counts, and ousted from the White House by U.S. voters four years ago, Trump is now poised once again to take the reins of our deeply divided nation. He was also decisively selected by the peo- ple of Florida, a result that surprised precisely no one. But Florida Democrats had held out hope for Miami-Dade, which has historically swung blue, voting overwhelmingly for Hill- ary Clinton in 2016 and for Joe Biden in 2020. Yet Trump flipped the county bright red on election night, becoming the first Republican presidential candidate to win Miami-Dade since George H.W. Bush 36 years ago. (Notably, the county also turned red in the 2022 midterm election that returned Repub- lican Ron DeSantis to the governor’s mansion in Tallahassee for a second term.) How did Trump achieve this seemingly unlikely feat? Clearly, the local Hispanic vote played a significant role. For example, while exit polls showed Trump upping his share of the na- tionwide Hispanic vote from 32 percent in 2020 to 45 percent in 2024, he won the local Hispanic strongholds of Hialeah and Doral on November 5 with 75 percent and 63 per- cent of the vote, respectively. For additional insight, New Times asked several political experts across Florida to share their takes. Kevin Wagner, a pollster and Florida At- lantic University (FAU) professor and associ- ate dean, says part of Miami-Dade’s shift to the right has been driven by the influx of resi- dents who fled to Florida during the pan- demic, many of whom supported DeSantis. Wagner also points to a larger trend of movement away from the Democratic Party that Florida has seen in recent cycles. “The predicate for this movement was seen in early statewide elections, so it’s not entirely unexpected,” Wagner says. Kathryn DePalo-Gould, a political sci- ence professor at Florida International Uni- versity (FIU), emphasizes that many people who left blue states like California and New York for Republican-leaning Florida — in- cluding Miami-Dade County — helped flip the county to red. She also notes that the perception of Dem- ocrats as “socialists” has driven many local Hispanic voters, in particular, to support the Republican Party. Aubrey Jewett, a political science profes- sor at the University of Central Florida, agrees that one of the key reasons Miami-Dade flipped from voting for Clinton by double dig- its in 2016 to voting for Trump by double dig- its in 2024 is the Republican Party’s sustained attack on Democrats as “socialists.” Jewett says that rhetoric resonated with a significant number of Hispanic voters in the county, not only Cubans but Venezuelans as well. “The thought in their head was, ‘I didn’t get forced out of my old country and come all the way to America just to come back to so- cialism.’ Right?” Jewett says, before adding, “Of course, from a political-science defini- tion, Joe Biden is not a socialist, and nor is Kamala Harris. They’re just not. But the la- bels stick.” Jewett and DePalo Gould both point to an- other key factor in Trump’s success among Miami-Dade voters: the Republican Party’s focus on registration drives. Jewett says the Florida’s GOP has consis- tently spent time and money on registration efforts in Miami-Dade’s Hispanic community, noting that the last time Democrats held an or- ganizational advantage in Florida was during the Obama administration, when the incum- bent president’s team, along with other nation- ally prominent Democrats, came to Florida. Last but not least, Jewett explains, Miami- Dade’s aggressive shift to the right was partly due to DeSantis’ focus on cultivating Republi- Donald Trump just became the first Republican presidential candidate to win Miami-Dade County in 36 years. We asked political experts: How? Photo by Gage Skidmore/Flickr | METRO |
