Donald Trump won this Tuesday’s elections by a landslide despite falling behind his rival, Kamala Harris, in the main urban areas of the United States.
From New York and Chicago to Dallas, San Francisco and Los Angeles, every major metropolis in the country leaned toward the Democratic Party.
With one exception: Miami-Dade Countythe urban center that makes up the main city of Florida.
Trump won this electoral district of 2.7 million inhabitants by 11 points: 55% of the votes to 44% for Harris.
His landslide victory was a surprise, since in the previous elections in 2016 and 2020 the county had gone widely for Democrats Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.
A historic change in Miami
Miami was, in fact, a Democratic fiefdom in the presidential elections until 2024.
The last time Republicans won in this South Florida city was 32 years ago with George H.W. Bushwho ended up losing the elections 1992 against Bill Clinton.
In the next 7 elections, both Bill Clinton and his Democratic successors were the favorites of Miamians.
In the last 2020 elections, Joe Biden carried the county by more than 7 points, with 53.4% of the votes compared to Trump’s 46.1%.
That is why it is surprising that only four years later, in 2024, the main urban center of Florida has voted again in favor of a Republican, that it has done so for the same candidate that it had rejected twice, and also with a wide margin of 11 points.
In fact, it is one of the few urban centers with more than 500,000 inhabitants in the US that have voted red in these elections. Others are Tampa (also in Florida) and Fort Worth (Texas).
So, what has happened in Miami?
The evolution of the vote of Latin Americans, who make up more than 68% of the population of the county, has had a decisive influence.
Miami History Museum senior historian Paul S. George explains that the root of this change is “the enormous growth and influence over recent years and decades of the Cuban-American population, which tends to be quite conservative and very strongly anti-communist.”
“I think that in these elections the Republicans have been very successful in presenting the issues of the socialism and Marxism as something typical of democratswhich I don’t think is right, but that has been their approach and a lot of people have embraced that idea,” he explains.
He also points out that Trump’s supporters in the city were actively mobilized in the campaign, with flags, banners and caravans of vehicles touring the city, while the Democrats were barely visible.
“There was a more visible show of support for Trump from the Hispanic community than ever before,” he says.
On the other hand, the Republican candidate’s anti-immigration messages and threats of mass deportations did not seem to scare a community where many families have members in an irregular situation or hope to receive them.
For the Miami historian, “it was a very delicate issue and the Trump campaign addressed it skillfully: They talked especially about the Texas border without mentioning Florida, the Caribbean, Cuba or Central America because they understood the importance of Cuban demographics here and that Cubans are great supporters of the Republicans.”
“They were very effective in scaring people by saying that millions were crossing the border between Texas and Mexico, some of them murderers, but they did not mention a word about this area that also receives a large influx of migrants,” he says.
For his part, Cuban-American radio host and political commentator Agustín Acosta, who has been analyzing current events in Miami and Florida for 45 years, points out the economy as the main reason why Miami voters have changed color.
“Actually, There are not enough Republicans in Miami-Dade enough to give Donald Trump the victory he obtained, but people here feel disappointed and very upset by the management of the country in terms of economy, finances and internal government, and wants a change,” he evaluates.
In addition to the increase in food prices in the last three years due to post-pandemic inflation, he indicates, “the wave of migration has caused a dramatic increase in rents in Miami, where before “You could rent a two-bedroom home for $1,300 and now it costs more than $2,300.”.
“The Democrats could not correctly capture the sentiment of the street. They focused on issues such as reproductive rights, climate change and the defense of democracy, which are important topics but sound somewhat abstract to many,” he says.
Florida, from “pendulum state” to red
In Florida, Donald Trump won a comfortable victory this Tuesday with 6.10 million votes (56%) to Kamala Harris’ 4.67 million (43%), which gave the Republican all the 29 electoral votes of the state.
With 22.6 million inhabitants according to the 2023 census estimate, Florida is the third most populous state in the United States and the third with the greatest weight in the elections only behind California and Texas.
Historically It was a “pendulum state” that has oscillated between the Democratic and Republican Parties in the presidential elections.
Its voters opted for Democrat Bill Clinton in 1996, while in 2000 and 2004 they sided with Republican George W. Bush; In the next two elections it was dyed blue again in favor of Barack Obama and finally returned to red in 2016 with Trump’s first electoral victory.
Since then it has been considered a solidly Republican state and Democrats have hardly put any effort into their campaign to reverse it.
For many, the tendency towards conservative voting is also linked to the evolution of the vote of residents of Latin American origin, who represent 27.4% of the population.
Political commentator Agustín Acosta explains to BBC Mundo that Latinos in Florida have the perception that “the Democratic Party is much further to the left than it was 10 or 15 years ago.”
“They tend to be conservatives who want the opportunity to have their own business without the government getting too involved in their daily lives. When an election like this comes, lean more towards a conservative stance than towards the more radical one that the Democrats currently represent,” he says.
Added to this is the fact that a large part of the Latinos in Florida who in recent years have acquired the right to vote are Cubans or Venezuelans who fled the socialist regimes prevailing in their countries.
“Many of the first political exiles who left when Chávez came to power and when Maduro assumed the presidency They already have citizenship and, to a large extent, they vote with concern that the United States is moving to the left, towards socialism,” says Acosta.
This evolution of the Latino vote complements the traditionally conservative tendency of Florida’s majority population of European descentespecially the white and rural race.
Added to this is the arrival to Florida in recent years of high-net-worth Americans from New York, Chicago and other large cities in search of good weather and low taxes.
Favored by the most liberal economic policies in Republican-governed statesthis group also tends to vote red.
“These are people who perhaps were conservative in their states but did not feel so numerous. By moving here, they add up little by little,” says the commentator.
click here to read more stories from BBC News Mundo.
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