Biden Struggling to Get Latino Voters in Florida

By Mary Anne R. Sep 09 2020, 03:17 AM EDT

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden struggles to get the support of Latino voters in Florida, according to a new poll by NBC/Marist.

The poll showed that Biden is lagging behind President Donald Trump when it comes to Latino voters. Trump is receiving 50 percent from Latino voters, while Biden is at 46 percent.

Last week, a Quinnipiac poll also found that Trump is leading Latino likely voters 45 to Biden's 43 across the state.

A Bendixen and Amandi poll conducted from Sept. 1 to 4 in the left-leaning Miami-Dade County showed that Trump has 47 percent support of likely Latino voters, while Biden stands at 46 percent.

The new polls showed potential challenges for Biden in Florida, where exit polls showed 2016 candidate Hillary Clinton carrying the Latino vote 62 percent to Trump's 35 percent. Clinton lost in Florida by just 1.2 percentage points.

Fernand Amandi, the Miami-based pollster and Democratic strategist behind the poll, said he thinks there is a reason for pause.

"If Biden under-performs in what should be one of his strongest counties - and is certainly the largest county for Democratic votes in the state of Florida - it might imperil his chances of winning Florida unless there is a massive white voter exodus from Trump in other parts of the state," Amandi said in a report.

Amandi noted that the Democrats are potentially leaving Cuban votes on the table that they won in the past. He added that this could make a difference in a state as tight as Florida.

The poll comes after Trump and Biden head into the final stretch to win Florida, where most public statewide surveys find Biden with a small lead. Latino voters have presented themselves as a key swing voting bloc in recent elections.

Two years ago, margins in Puerto Ricans in Central Florida and Cuban-Americans in Miami-Dade helped change tight elections in favor of Republicans in the governor and Senate race.

Many polls showed that the Democratic nominee is struggling to match Clinton's 2016 numbers among Florida Latinos.

Equis Research, the Democratic Latino firm, earlier conducted a poll survey that showed that Biden has a 16-point lead statewide among registered Latino voters. Polls from 2016 found that Clinton won Florida Latinos by 27 points.

Trump's lead among Miami-Dade's Latino voters is largely due to his success in gaining Cuban-Americans' support. Since being the President, Trump has paid many visits to Miami to discuss socialism.

Trump also chose Miami to launch his Latinos for Trump campaign coalition, including Florida's Cuban-American Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez as co-chairwoman.

Cuban American from Miami and senior adviser to the Trump campaign, Mercedes Schlapp, said she is not surprised by the popularity of Trump's "pro-worker, anti-socialism record."

Schlapp said Biden's campaign is a sticky situation "of leftist policies and alliances," with politicians such as democratic socialist Senator Bernie Sanders.

"With that kind of an agenda, it's no wonder that so many fellow Cuban Americans, Colombians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans are rejecting his Trojan horse candidacy," Schlapp noted.