Hispanic Voter Surge Helps Democrats Storm Ahead In Florida Early Ballots

Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:29 pm

Record turnout among Hispanic voters in Florida has helped Democrats storm ahead in early voting in the state, according to the state officials.

Out of nearly 6 million votes already in the Sunshine State, Democrats have a 7,000 vote edge. It’s narrow, but if the Hispanic vote continues to surge for Clinton, her lead will likely grow as Election Day nears.

According to Univision:

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A dramatic surge in recent months by Hispanic voters is becoming daily more evident in official early voting data, according to analysis by University of Florida political scientist Daniel Smith.

“It very well could be the Hispanic vote that saves Hillary Clinton in Florida,” said Smith, who tracks the state’s voting patterns on his blog, electionsmith.com.

It’s just been eye-popping the turnout by Hispanics,” he added, citing data from early in person voting and voting by mail in Florida, the largest swing state which pundits say is a must-win for Republican Party candidate Donald Trump to have any chance of being elected president.

Polls currently show the race to be statistically tied.

The large turnout comes on the back of record voter registration by Hispanics in Florida this year. Smith’s analysis found that nearly 23 percent of the 820,000 voters who registered this year in Florida describe themselves as Hispanic. While ethnicity is optional on voter forms, the number is way over the 16 per cent Latino share of the state’s population. New white voters represented 52 percent of new voters, despite accounting for 68 percent of the voting population.

It appears that a campaign filled with racially offensive and insensitive rhetoric by Donald Trump is taking its toll.  In Tampa today, Trump even made this puzzling comment:

Fact check: not true.

Of course, it’s not just minority voters in the state that should be worrying the Trump campaign.

As Hrafnkell Haraldsson wrote earlier in the week, a staggering 28 percent of Republican early voters in the Sunshine State have cast their ballot for Hillary Clinton. 

All of this spells trouble for Republicans not just on Nov. 8, as it would all but guarantee a Clinton win in the state, but it would also hurt their chances in future presidential elections.

Sean Colarossi

Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.