The battleground state of Florida, known for being won by the smallest of margins, skewed in favor of President Trump in the 2020 election results. Trump won with a lead of approximately 400,000 votes over Democratic nominee Joe Biden, significantly more than his lead in 2016 where he defeated Hillary Clinton by approximately 100,000 votes.
Despite Biden leading Trump by approximately 80,000 votes in Miami-Dade County, a predominantly blue county, he did not seem to outperform Hillary Clinton who received almost 300,000 more votes than Trump.
Miami-Dade County has a large Latinx population that generally tends to skew more toward the Democratic Party, but in Florida this year, Trump won 47% of the Latino vote.
This came as an upset to many, especially Democrats, who have repeatedly criticized the president for calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals in 2016 and his controversial family separation policy at the border between the U.S. and Mexico.
Many are acknowledging that the Democratic Party didn’t reach out to Latinx voters as much as they could have.
“There’s more we could have done on our side, there is more the Biden campaign should have done, as a party we are always so late to the game,” said Lorella Praeli, president of Community Change Action, a group aimed in part at mobilizing Latinx voters.
At the same time, many argued that this is not surprising by saying that Trump and the Republican Party generally do speak to many Latin values.
“I think Latinos understand Trump can be coarse sometimes… but then they take a look at his policies that a lot of Latinos embrace – pro-growth, entrepreneurial…,” says Daniel Garza, president of the LIBRE Initiative, a Hispanic center-right organization.
Aside from Miami-Dade, Biden sat comfortably in the lead in Alachua, Broward, Duval, Gadsden, Hillsborough, Leon, Orange, Osceola, Palm Beach, Pinellas and Seminole counties. The remaining counties leaned in favor of Trump.
According to NBC News exit polls, Trump seemed to perform significantly better among white male voters than Biden with 64%, while Biden outperformed Trump among every other racial and gender demographic.
89% of Black voters said they casted their vote for Biden, although many Black voters acknowledged that their vote for Biden was just a vote against Trump.
“I’m fed up – to here,” said childcare worker Emma Conner. “These past four years under Trump have been terrible.”
Among sex, Trump seemed to perform better among men with a 53% lead. However, he had a little more trouble with women considering 52% decided to hand their vote to Biden.
One potential reason for Trump’s better performance with men in comparison to women is abortion, which is a controversial topic among American voters. The majority of women consider themselves to be pro-choice.
Given the Trump administration’s repeated attempts to shut down Planned Parenthood, it is plausible that many women voters could not reconcile that and decided to cast their vote for Biden.
Finally, among the 6% of voters participating in Florida exit polls who identified as LGBTQ+, results show 81% said that Biden had snagged their vote in the 2020 election.
LGBTQ+ rights have been under attack since the beginning of Trump’s presidency, from a ban on transgender people serving in the military to the Department of Health and Human Services saying it would not enforce LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination policies. These attacks and numerous others likely played a role in Biden receiving the LGBTQ+ vote.
Featured image: Florida welcome sign. Unmodified photo by Mjrmtg used under a Creative Commons license. (https://bit.ly/3euoWeZ)
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