Florida sees shift in Hispanic vote
In perennial swing state Florida, Republicans always had one thing they could count on: winning the state's Hispanic vote, thanks to the enduring loyalty of South Florida voters of Cuban descent.
The Cubans are still there, and they still largely vote Republican. But their share of the state's Hispanic population is being overtaken as an influx of Democratic-leaning Puerto Ricans to Central Florida reshapes the state's political formulas.
Strategists believe this population, concentrated in the Orlando area, now represents the "battleground within the battleground" that could ultimately decide the 2012 election.
"The Hispanic vote has diversified," said Florida GOP strategist Ana Navarro. For national candidates courting Florida's Hispanic voters, "it means coming down to Miami and having a Cuban coffee is still a must, but now there's got to be more to it than that."
The surge of Puerto Ricans has "brought balance to Florida Hispanics," said Jamie Miller, a Sarasota-based Republican consultant and former state GOP executive director.
Puerto Ricans' escalating numbers already have helped Florida Democrats reach a crucial milestone: In 2008 - and for the first time in the state - more Hispanics registered as Democrats than as Republicans. In the latest state statistics, Democrats outpaced Republicans in Hispanic voter registration by 8 percentage points.
"You used to be able to say Florida Hispanics are Republicans," Miller said. "Now that's not necessarily the case. The Puerto Rican community is much different from the Cuban community from an electoral standpoint. They vote Democrat rather than Republican, for the most part."
The 2010 census data released last month showed a dramatic 57 percent increase in Florida's overall Hispanic population, far outpacing the 18 percent total population increase. The increase means Hispanics account for 23 percent of the state's 18.8 million residents.
Some of the biggest Hispanic growth rates were seen in Orange and Osceola counties, located in the middle of the so-called I-4 corridor - the 133-mile highway that runs across the state's peninsula through Tampa, Orlando and Daytona Beach.
Those two counties added more than 200,000 Hispanic residents over the course of the decade - an 83 percent increase in Orange County and a 141 percent increase in Osceola. By contrast, the Hispanic population of Miami-Dade County grew 26 percent.
The latest data don't break down the Hispanic population by origin, but previous census projections have estimated that Puerto Ricans account for half of Hispanics in those two counties. Statewide, a 2009 census report put the number of Puerto Ricans at nearly 730,000 - fast approaching the 1.1 million Cubans in the state.
"The census is showing that Puerto Ricans have an opportunity to flex as much, if not more, electoral muscle than Cubans," said Carlos Odio, a former Obama White House political staffer who helped oversee the 2008 campaign's Hispanic outreach.
It hasn't happened yet, because Cubans still register and turn out to vote at higher rates than do other Hispanics, said Odio, himself a Floridian of Cuban descent.
But based on the numbers, a power shift is under way.
Republicans won big in Florida in 2010, taking the governorship, the Senate race and seats in Congress and both houses of the state Legislature. But the GOP can't rest on its laurels, said Susan MacManus, a political scientist at the University of South Florida.
Minority turnout was low in the state in 2010, leading to an electorate "heavily dominated by older citizens upset by the economic direction of the country," MacManus said. A more diverse electorate, in terms of age and race, can be expected in 2012, she said.
"Even more than the diversification of the state, the trend we've been seeing has been the diversification within the minority groups," MacManus said.
The Puerto Rican surge in Florida is more politically consequential than the much-vaunted Hispanic population increases in many other states, where a lot of the growth might consist of noncitizens who are not eligible to vote.
Puerto Ricans, unlike foreign-born Hispanics, are U.S. citizens. Many are drawn to Florida to work in the tourism industry - the Orlando-based Disney World resort recruits on the island, where unemployment is high.
The Puerto Rican population leans Democratic but can swing either way. GOP politicians like former President George W. Bush and Govs. Jeb Bush and Charlie Crist won them over with intensive outreach campaigns.
"Jeb Bush wouldn't fly over Orlando without stopping and talking to the [Puerto Rican] community," Odio said.
"Many of those Central Florida Hispanics are swing voters," said Navarro, the GOP strategist. "The Republican Party has shown in the past we are capable of winning the swing Hispanic vote, but it requires a great deal of outreach and long-term focus. Jeb Bush won it twice, George Bush won it. But we have not won the Central Florida swing vote since then."
In 2008, Obama's outreach to the community was similarly intense, with ads on Spanish radio and television and Spanish-speaking surrogates frequently deployed as guests on popular local radio programs. Obama's campaign had several times as many staffers in Central Florida as did John McCain's campaign.
The current Republican governor, Rick Scott, didn't do much to reach out to this community, but neither did his Democratic opponent, Alex Sink, who had a financial disadvantage.
Sen. Marco Rubio, the GOP's Cuban wunderkind, won a majority of Florida's Hispanic voters, but not of the non-Cuban Hispanic vote.
Despite their shrinking share of the Hispanic population, Cubans still dominate politically, thanks to a well-oiled machine, longtime power brokers and their inveterate turnout. Of 13 Hispanic state legislators, 10 are Cuban, including nine Republicans. Just one, a Democrat, is Puerto Rican.
In the state's federal House and Senate delegation, there are three Hispanics - all Cuban Republicans.
"We don't have any congressmen or state senators, so we're still sort of climbing up through the ceiling," said state Rep. Darren Soto, the Puerto Rican Democrat who represents a Central Florida district. Representation for the area's Hispanics is a major issue in the redistricting process currently under way.
"Politically, we're still sort of struggling to get through, but the way the population is growing, it's going to have a big impact," Soto said. "The population is there, but the voting trend is inconsistent."
Soto's district includes parts of Orlando and its suburbs, straddling Orange and Osceola counties. "The neighborhoods that I represent wouldn't have existed 10 or 15 years ago," he said. "Now they're bustling suburbs."
These new Floridians, Soto says, are motivated mostly by economic issues, unlike the foreign-policy-focused, anticommunist Cubans. Because they're citizens, they're not as fervent about immigration issues as other Hispanics - Puerto Rican independence is a morass any politician is wise to avoid - but they have punished Republicans for what they perceive as racially targeted policies like Arizona's tough state immigration law.
In 2008, Navarro said, Obama recorded some campaign ads in Spanish, even though he doesn't speak the language - he was reciting the words phonetically. McCain, whose campaign Navarro advised, refused to do that, thinking it offensive.
McCain was wrong, she said. "Hispanics gave Obama credit for making the effort," she said. "Anyone thinking of running for president in 2012 had better get a Berlitz course." Obama, who won Florida by about 240,000 votes, could not have done so without his 57 percent showing among Hispanic voters.
Navarro, who already is being wooed by the major 2012 contenders, believes Obama's failure to deliver on his promises on immigration reform gives Republicans an opening with Hispanics. But she worries that divisive GOP rhetoric will again turn Hispanic voters away - she's particularly alarmed by an Arizona-style immigration bill being considered by the Florida Legislature.
"What they can't do is show up four weeks before the election trying to speak Spanish and dance salsa," she said. "We've got to start investing and putting the pieces into place now."
Esteban Bovo, a Cuban Republican who recently resigned from the state Legislature to run for Miami-Dade County commissioner, said his community's political influence is hardly diminishing.
"I hear a lot of talk about an increasing Hispanic voter base building in Orlando, but I have not seen that translate itself yet into voting blocs," he said. "The Hispanic vote is still mostly residing in Dade County, where the Cuban-American vote is solidly Republican."
Bovo said the GOP is mindful of the population data trends, but it may be some time before they manifest politically.
"There's a lot of lip service, but I don't think it's translated into political maturity," he said. "At least not yet."