Latino
People attend an ecumenical worship service at Mi Familia Vota headquarters to promote the importance of the Latino vote. Reutersconnect

Two Republican Latino candidates were victorious in the recently held U.S. Presidential election. Both of them defeated the Democratic candidates in the state.

Pres. Donald Trump gained the support of Latino voters across the country, most especially in Florida. Trump and his party have also helped two Latino candidates to win their seats against the Democratic candidates.

In the county of Miami-Dade, Republican candidate Carlos Gimenez defeated the incumbent Democratic Representative Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. It was expected to be a close or a tight race but Gimenez won at the end of the election day in Miami-Dade.

Meanwhile, another member of the Latino community who was a former television reporter, Maria Elvira Salazar, defeated another Democratic candidate Rep. Donna Shalala in the neighboring district.

A professor of political science at Florida International University Dario Moreno said, "The Shalala district caught me totally by surprise."

Read also: How Trump Won the Support of Latinos

According to a published article in The Hill, one of the factors that helped Gimenez and Salazar won in the election is their citizenship. They are both Cuban-Americans and the majority of their race support Pres. Trump and the candidates of the Republican Party.

Even though Mucarsel-Powell was born in Ecuador, some Cubans got angry with her after she said that the "Cuban-American mafia" in Tallahassee was after her.

"It was true, the Cuban legislators in Tallahassee wanted to get rid of her because she was a Democrat and it's party politics," Moreno responded.

He also added that by calling and saying 'Cuban-American Mafia', it upset many Cuban voters. This raised an issue that Debbie Mucarsel-Powell was not a Cuban. This hurt her candidacy as a County Mayor where many voters were Cuban-Americans.

Moreover, Trump's victory in the state of Florida went beyond the support of Cuban-Americans. Pres. Trump is supported by the majority of Latino voters in the state because of his efforts to address the needs like employment during his term.

More Latino voters supported Trump this election

According to the American Election Eve Poll, a biannual poll measuring the attitudes of minority voters taken right before each national election, around 38 percent of Latinos supported Pres. Donald Trump, this election compared to 31 percent in the 2016 Presidential election.

Another factor also that helped Pres. Trump to gain the support of Latino voters was that he focused his campaign on the largest minority group towards the economy instead of immigration. It can be remembered that his position in immigration turned off Latino voters in 2016.

Moreno explained, "Shalala and Debbie both made anti-[Venezuelan President Nicolás] Maduro statements but they weren't visible enough."

He also added that the two Democratic candidates overestimated the degree to which young Cubans have distanced from the issue that defined the region's politics for decades.

Pres. Trump has already dealt with the issue of socialism during his first term. His administration was also able to establish a connection with the Latino and Hispanic voters in the country that helped them to dominate the support from the largest minority group.