A supporter of President Donald Trump holds a 'Latinos for Trump' sign at a campaign rally. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Could the state’s Latino voting population be the key demographic that decides the U.S. Senate race between Rick Scott and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell?
Both candidates have been making direct appeals to Latino voters. Over the weekend, Mucarsel-Powell launched her first Spanish-language television ad, called “ The Important Things. ” Her campaign began airing Spanish-language radio ads last month and NPR reported last week that she has launched a campaign on WhatsApp to reach out directly to the state’s Hispanic community.
Scott speaks fluent Spanish. Earlier this year, he released a series of four television and radio ads targeting Spanish-speaking voters, and a super PAC backing Scott is airing an ad in Spanish in the Orlando market this week.
According to a report released Tuesday, investing in Spanish language outreach is a key to reaching the 3.3 million eligible Latino voters in Florida.
“The state’s Latino eligible voting population has significantly higher rates of speaking Spanish,” says the “data brief” from the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute. “Four in five Latino eligible voters in Florida are Spanish speakers, including 30% of Latinos who only speak Spanish. These high rates are more pronounced in Miami-Dade County, where more than 90% of Latinos speak Spanish.”
The report says 50% of Latino eligible voters in Florida are bilingual and could be contacted in both English and Spanish. In Miami-Dade County, fewer than 10% of Latinos only speak English while 40% speak only Spanish.
The investments in Spanish media could be decisive in what has become closer contest with eight weeks to go before Election Day.
“Significantly more Latinos speak Spanish (and speak only Spanish) in Florida and in areas like Miami-Dade County than in the U.S., so Spanish language campaign materials will be crucial to reaching and engaging the Latino population,” co-author and research analyst Juliana Phan said.
Socialism?
Although a Morning Consult survey released Monday shows Scott with a five-point edge, 47%-42, a poll released by Emerson College last week showed the Senate race in a virtual tie, with Scott up by just a single point, 46%-45%.
Scott’s Spanish-language ads and much of his platform has assailed Mucarsel-Powell as being a “socialist,” a familiar campaign attack against Democrats, particularly in South Florida with its substantial population of eligible Cuban, Venezuelan, and Nicaraguan voters who have fled socialist governments.
One of Scott’s Spanish-language ads was called “Socialismo.” And a new ad again calling her out as a socialist is airing in both Spanish and English in Orlando by Project Rescue America, a federal super political action committee backing Scott.
Mucarsel-Powell was born in Ecuador and speaks often of becoming the first South American immigrant elected to Congress. As a way to address Scott’s criticisms, she has challenged him to one debate exclusively in Spanish. (Last week her campaign announced she had accepted offers by three local television stations to broadcast debates statewide before the election. The Scott campaign has not publicly responded.)
The UCLA report used data from the Latino Data Hub , which took information from the 2002 American Community Survey. It says that while 33% of Latino voters in Florida are affiliated with the Democratic Party and 28% of Latino voters are affiliated with the Republican Party, 39% of Latino voters are independent.
An online survey of 567 Hispanic voters from Florida compiled from Aug. 1 to Aug. 5 from Televisa Univision found that 30% of those surveyed said that they were undecided about their presidential choice.
The survey showed that 45% of Hispanic voters would definitely or probably vote for Scott for Senate, and 39% would definitely or probably vote for Mucarsel-Powell. However, 33% said they were not completely certain about their vote for senator.
Fluidity
An additional 43% of Hispanic voters said they were “very likely” or “somewhat likely” to vote for a candidate from a political party that they have “typically” not voted for in the past.
“The fluidity in voting choices of Latino Floridians can be attributed to them resonating more with specific political messages and candidates than they do with political parties, particularly as the messages relate to religion and freedom,” the brief says.
In terms of Latino voters by descent group, 28.6% of voters are Cuban; 26.6% Puerto Rican; 9.7% Mexican; 7.8% Colombian; 4.8% Dominican. The report says that other descent groups were excluded due to small sample sizes.
When it comes to the median income of eligible voters in Florida by race, Latinos are at $64,000. That’s compared to $73,000 for white voters, $50,000 for Black voters, $68,700 for multiracial voters, and $87,300 for Asian or Pacific Islander voters.
The brief says the vast majority of Latino voters in Florida have access to the internet, a smartphone, and a car, but fewer have access to broadband internet.
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