The Republican Party is winning increasing support from black and hispanic voters, two critical voting blocks for Democrats across the country, according to a recent poll. Nowhere is this pattern more prominent among Florida Hispanics, sending even more warning signals to Democrats with Election Day imminent.
According to the Wall Street Journal, “About 17% of black voters said they would pick a Republican candidate for Congress over a Democrat in Wall Street Journal polls both in late October and August.” This is over double the 8% chunk of the black vote that Republican House Candidates netted in 2018 and that Donald Trump earned in 2020, which itself was a 2% bump from his numbers in 2016.
Subscribe to the Florida Jolt Newsletter!
Among Latino voters, the nationwide shift is much sharper. In August, democrats had an 11-point lead in Latino voters’ congressional candidate preferences, but in October, that shrunk down to 5 points.
However, in Florida, Democrats don’t have an advantage at all. DeSantis leads Crist in the Hispanic vote by 7-points, a 12-point swing in Republicans’ favor compared to the WSJ’s national average. They favored DeSantis on his handling of Hurricane Iain and COVID-19, as well as his overall performance. The survey even showed that most Florida Hispanics supported DeSantis’ move to fly illegal migrants to Martha’s Vineyard. What’s more, 65% of those surveyed were not Republicans.
CBS News asked me why Republicans, like Gov. DeSantis, are succeeding with Hispanic voters.
Here's what I said: pic.twitter.com/MSJxqBgYr3
— Giancarlo Sopo (@GiancarloSopo) November 4, 2022
DeSantis expected to roll up historic numbers tomorrow night, winning the Hispanic vote outright and taking the governorship by a record number of votes. Not surprising that talk around Trump is about an imminent ‘24 announcement to step on DeSantis’ historic night.
— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) November 7, 2022
The explanation? WSJ polls found inflation was likely to blame for the shift. While The Democratic party campaigns as the champion of the downtrodden, its inflationary policies hit lower-income citizens the hardest. Social movements from the Democrats pushing terms like “Latinx” may not be helping either. Hispanic political figures have also voiced their concern that Democrats are setting the US down a road to communism, similar to what they escaped from.
John Anzalone, who conducted the Journal survey with Republican Tony Fabrizio and served as President Biden’s lead pollster in 2020, made a bold prediction for the upcoming midterms.
“I think that this could be a paradigm-shift election, where Republicans are not only making inroads with the Latino vote, but they’re now making inroads with the African-American vote,”
Other stories you may want to read:
‘Carry This Torch of Freedom Onward’: DeSantis Releases Final, Uplifting Ad
As Tuesday’s Midterms Loom, There’s Only One Question: How Big Will the Republican Win Be?
