Florida ranks 4th in nation for multiracial residents

Former President Trump's false attack questioning Vice President Kamala Harris' racial identity comes as the number of people in the U.S. identifying as multiracial is surging — particularly in Florida.

Why it matters: Trump's comments illuminate how some Americans consistently misunderstand the complexities of people from multiple racial and ethnic backgrounds and how those identities shape their lives.

• In Florida, 16.5% of the population identify as multiracial, more than 3.5 million individuals.
• That's the fourth-highest percentage in the U.S., behind Hawaii, New Mexico and Texas. The national figure is 10.2%.

Zoom in: Miami-Dade County reported 1.1 million multiracial residents in the latest Census count.

Catch up fast: Trump's comments at the National Association of Black Journalists convention last week, saying Harris primarily identified as Indian and "became Black" recently, stirred discussions about her background.

Reality check: Harris regularly cites her background as the daughter of a South Asian immigrant mother and a Jamaican immigrant father.

• Harris graduated from Howard University (an HBCU), joined the historically Black sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha and was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus as a U.S. senator.

Harris is hardly alone. People who identify as multiracial, or more than one race , are among the fastest-growing segments of the U.S. population, according to the U.S. Census .

• The 2020 Census found that those who identify as multiracial almost quadrupled from 9 million in 2010 to 33.8 million a decade later.