Trump’s Katrina? Influx of Puerto Ricans after Hurricane Maria could tip Florida toward Democrats.
More than 50 million ballots were cast by Floridians in the seven presidential elections from 1992 through 2016. If you add them all up, only 18,000 votes separate the Republicans from the Democrats. That is 0.04 percent.
Florida is rightfully considered the swingiest of swing states. Control of the White House in 2000 came down to a few hundred hanging chads — and one vote on the Supreme Court. The past four statewide elections — two governor’s races and two presidentials — were all decided by a single percentage point.
So it could be quite politically significant that tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans, maybe more, are expected to permanently move into Florida as the result of Hurricane Maria. The Category 4 storm has wreaked havoc on the U.S. territory of 3.4 million. Most of the island still doesn’t have power a week after Maria made landfall. There are shortages of fuel, medicine, food and running water. Infrastructure that was already crumbling is in ruins.
Puerto Ricans are American citizens, thanks to a law passed in 1917. As a result, all they need to settle in the mainland is a plane ticket or a berth on a boat.
Their citizenship entitles them to vote, and they tend to overwhelmingly support Democratic candidates.
Florida-based Republican operative Rick Wilson thinks the hurricane might be a game changer. “If you put an influx of 100,000 Puerto Ricans who vote Democratic eight times out of 10 in the Orlando area, there you go,” he said. “Nobody can afford a big change in the registration pattern or a change in the voting pattern that offsets Florida’s narrowness. You could end up with a big advantage for Democrats in 2018 if they play it right. The Puerto Ricans would be coming here because they feel like Donald Trump left them high and dry. That won’t fade away. … It could be a very, very big deal.”
The number of people of Puerto Rican origin living in Florida already surpassed 1 million in 2015, which is more than double what it was in 2000. Cuban Americans now represent less than one-third of Florida’s eligible Hispanic voters.
They have primarily settled in the Orlando metropolitan area, which is part of the pivotal Interstate 4 corridor. “Because so many Puerto Ricans have already migrated here, it is easier now,” said Schale, who is based in Tallahassee. “They have homes to go to and support networks in place, which also makes it easier to stay.”
-- Frustration stemming from Trump’s initially lackadaisical response to Hurricane Maria might make these new voters even more antagonistic to the GOP. The president has resisted opening up the port of San Juan to foreign ships, for example, and he hasn’t appeared as worried about the damage as he was when he went to Texas for Hurricane Harvey and Florida for Hurricane Irene.
Trump has been pilloried in the Spanish-language press for launching a culture war against the NFL amid the suffering in Puerto Rico. He tweeted more than a dozen times over the weekend about the national anthem, but he was silent and seemed unsympathetic about the damage from the hurricane.
On Monday night, pop star Marc Anthony tweeted angrily at the president: “Mr. President shut the [expletive] up about NFL. Do something about our people in need in #PuertoRico. We are American citizens too.” The post quickly got more than 89,000 retweets and 221,000 likes. Other Latino celebrities like Ricky Martin, Pitbull and Jennifer Lopez also tried to call more public attention to the misery on the ground.
“On Monday when we realized that the president had spent the weekend fighting with football players and their mothers, we realized, ‘Wait a minute. This guy hasn’t said anything about us,’” said Luis A. Miranda, a Democratic consultant in New York who is of Puerto Rican descent. “What crystalized it was Marc Anthony’s tweet. … Trump’s tweets are red meat for the third of the country — his base — that is the only thing that he has left. A tweet about Puerto Rico is not good red meat for his base, so he’d rather fight about the American flag and what African American athletes do to raise consciousness.”
Miranda is a board member of the Latino Victory Project, which helps identify and assist Latino candidates running for office. (He’s also the father of Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of “Hamilton.”) He said it is crucial for Democrats to capitalize on the new wave of immigrants. “We have to register people and we need to give them good reasons to vote,” Miranda said. “We cannot just go to them three months before the election and say, ‘Vote Democratic,’ or ’Vote for this candidate.’ … Something that energizes people a bit is when there are good Latino candidates.”
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