Trump targets 2024 Hispanic vote as rivals gather for Miami debate
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[November 08, 2023]
By Nathan Layne and James Oliphant
(Reuters) - Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican
presidential nomination, will stage a rally outside Miami on Wednesday
to court Hispanic voters seen as important to 2024 electoral victory as
his party rivals gather to debate again without him.
The rally in the Cuban American stronghold of Hialeah is aimed in part
at boosting Trump's support among Hispanics in Florida, campaign
spokesman Steven Cheung said. Trump's support among Hispanics, the
fastest-growing ethnic and racial group in the U.S. electorate, swelled
during his 2020 campaign.
The locations of both events - the debate will be a half-hour away in
Miami-Dade County - underscore the potential for both Trump and his
rivals with a demographic increasingly disillusioned by cultural and
economic policies on the left.
"We picked up a lot of voters and they continue to trend our way," said
Christian Ziegler, chair the Republican Party of Florida, referring to
2020 and 2022. "That's why you see both the debate and the rally
location being announced there."
Miami-Dade is Florida's most populous county and home to 1.5 million
Latinos of voting age. Democrat Hillary Clinton carried the county over
Trump by nearly 30 percentage points in 2016. Trump cut that margin to 7
percentage points against Democrat Joe Biden in 2020.
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Ron DeSantis won the county outright in his re-election campaign for
governor in 2022, winning 65% of the Hispanic vote in a landslide
victory that suggested a massive shift toward the Republicans in just
six years.
Now Trump is banking on Hispanic voters to help him defeat DeSantis, who
is a distant second in polls in the Republican nominating contest, while
looking to lock in their support for a likely general election rematch
with Biden in November 2024.
It is part of a broader attempt by Trump to expand a base built on
white, rural voters. In addition to the party's gains with the Hispanic
community, opinion polls released this week by The New York Times and
Siena College show that 22% of Black voters in six hotly-contested
states support Trump, a level not secured by a Republican presidential
candidate in modern times.
Democrats have fretted about the erosion of their advantage with Latino
voters since the 2020 election when Trump pulled a larger share of that
vote – 32% - than any Republican since President George W. Bush almost
two decades ago.
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![](../images/110823PIX/news_y27.jpg)
Former U.S. President and Presidential Republican candidate Donald
Trump speaks to his supporters during the Florida Freedom Summit
held at the Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center in Kissimmee,
Florida, U.S., November 4, 2023. REUTERS/Octavio Jones/File Photo
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REPUBLICAN OUTREACH
Republicans have been investing in community outreach programs in
Florida and see potential for further gains.
Ziegler said his party has been able to connect with more Hispanic
voters by focusing their communications on issues important to them,
including a program expanding access to school vouchers signed into
law by DeSantis earlier this year.
In a Reuters/Ipsos poll in September 38% of Hispanic respondents
said they would vote for Biden, while 36% picked Trump. That would
appear to be a troubling trend for Biden, who beat Trump by about 20
points among Hispanic voters in 2020, according to an analysis of
exit poll data by Pew Research.
The Biden campaign isn't sitting on its hands. It views Hispanic,
Black and young voters as critical to its chances in 2024 and has
started to ramp up spending on Spanish-language ads, among other
measures targeting swing states.
But campaign advisers are also aware that Florida, which was once a
battleground but is now solidly Republican, will be tough for Biden
to capture, regardless of how he fares with Hispanic voters.
Trump's legal troubles appear to be helping boost his standing with
Hispanic voters, many of whom fled repressive regimes and sympathize
with Trump's unfounded claims that he is being prosecuted for
political reasons.
"It's a political persecution just like Venezuela and Nicaragua,'
said Fabio Andrade, a Colombian-American businessman who helps
organize Hispanic voters as part of a “Republican Amigos” club. "No
different."
(Reporting by Nathan Layne, James Oliphant, Jason Lange and Jarrett
Renshaw; editing by Ross Colvin and Grant McCool)
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