The race continues for the White House, as many votes are still yet uncounted.
However, Donald Trump won the Florida state by a small margin and with the support of a wave of voters of Latin American origin. This victory was crucial for the Republican.
See how the division of voters in Florida went, according to the AP:
- Donald Trump: 51,25%
- Joe Biden: 47,85%
A poll by consultancy Edison Research released on Tuesday night, shows that Trump won about 47% of the vote of Latin American voters in the state – an increase of 12 percentage points in relation to his performance in 2016.
Voters of this profile represent 19% of the total in the state.
The president improved his numbers mainly in the Miami area, where there are people from Cuban or Venezuelan families who identify themselves as anti-Left. As the Republicans’ campaign made efforts to classify the opponent, Joe Biden, as a politician who made pacts with the radical left.
Trump’s rhetoric against China also helped to convince these voters, says Maiara Folly of the Igarape Institute.
“At first, the support of this voter may seem strange, given Trump’s hostile policy towards immigrants, but he was very smart to attract Latinos with politics to Latin America: he adopted a very aggressive stance with Cuba and Venezuela – it didn’t work, these two countries have no change in perspective, but the hostile tone pleased voters, ”she says.
“The Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, went to Brazil to criticize Venezuela, and that is well seen among these conservative Latin voters”, says the researcher, who is doing a master’s degree on forced migration at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom.
It wasn’t just in Florida that Latin Americans gave crucial support to Trump, in Texas they also helped the current president.
A survey by consultancy Edison Research shows that Trump’s performance among non-white voters across the country has improved compared to 2016. It was a three percentage point increase among Latin Americans.
There are some peculiarities: among older Latinos, he improved his performance by 15 percentage points. Among blacks between 30 and 44, he rose 11 points.
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