New report lists key factors for reaching Florida's Latino electorate • Florida Phoenix

Could the state's Latino voting population be the key demographic that decides the U.S. Senate race between Rick Scott and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell?

Both candidates have reached out directly to Latino voters. Over the weekend, Mucarsel-Powell launched her first Spanish-language television ad, titled “The Important Things.” Her campaign team began airing Spanish-language radio ads last month, and NPR reported last week that she has launched a campaign on WhatsApp to reach the state's Hispanic community directly.

Scott is fluent in Spanish. Earlier this year, he released a series of four television and radio ads aimed at Spanish-speaking voters, and a super PAC supporting Scott is airing a Spanish-language ad in the Orlando market this week.

Investing in Spanish-language outreach is key to reaching Florida's 3.3 million eligible Latino voters, according to a report released Tuesday.

“Among the state's eligible Latinos, a significantly higher proportion speak Spanish,” says the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute's “Data Overview.” “Four out of five eligible Latinos in Florida speak Spanish, including 30% of Latinos who speak only Spanish. These high proportions are even more pronounced in Miami-Dade County, where more than 90% of Latinos speak Spanish.”

The report says that 50% of eligible Latinos in Florida are bilingual and can be contacted in both English and Spanish. In Miami-Dade County, less than 10% of Latinos speak only English and 40% speak only Spanish.

With eight weeks to go before election day, investment in Spanish media could be crucial in what is becoming an increasingly tense election campaign.

“Significantly more Latinos speak Spanish (and speak only “In Florida and areas like Miami-Dade County, the Spanish (Hispanic) language is more important than in the United States itself, so Spanish-language campaign materials will be critical to reaching and engaging the Latino population,” says co-author and research analyst Juliana Phan.

Socialism?

Although a Morning Consult poll released Monday showed Scott ahead by five percentage points, 47 percent to 42 percent, a poll released last week by Emerson College showed the race for the Senate seat virtually neck and neck, with Scott leading by just a single percentage point, 46 percent to 45 percent.

In his Spanish-language ads and in much of his platform, Scott Mucarsel-Powell accuses him of being a “socialist.” This is a familiar campaign attack on the Democrats, especially in South Florida, where a large portion of eligible voters from Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua fled socialist governments.

One of Scott's Spanish-language ads was called “Socialismo.” And a new ad that again calls her a socialist is airing in Orlando in Spanish and English. The ad is being aired by Project Rescue America, a state political action committee that supports Scott.

Mucarsel-Powell was born in Ecuador and often speaks of being the first South American immigrant elected to Congress. To counter Scott's criticism, she has challenged him to a debate held entirely in Spanish. (Last week, her campaign announced that she had accepted offers from three local television stations to broadcast pre-election debates nationally. The Scott campaign has not commented publicly.)

The UCLA report used data from the Latino Data Hub, which in turn used information from the 2002 American Community Survey. It says that 33% of Latino voters in Florida belong to the Democratic Party and 28% of Latino voters belong to the Republican Party, while 39% of Latino voters are independent.

An online poll of 567 Hispanic voters in Florida conducted by Televisa Univision between August 1 and 5 found that 30 percent of respondents said they were undecided about their choice for president.

The poll found that 45 percent of Hispanic voters would definitely or probably vote for Scott for senator and 39 percent would definitely or probably vote for Mucarsel-Powell. However, 33 percent said they were not sure about their vote for the senator.

liquid

Another 43 percent of Hispanic voters said they would be “very likely” or “somewhat likely” to vote for a candidate from a political party they have not “typically” voted for in the past.

“The variability in voting decisions among Latino citizens in Florida can be attributed to their greater appeal to certain political messages and candidates than to political parties, particularly when it comes to messages about religion and freedom,” the report said.

As for Latino voters by origin group, 28.6% of voters are Cuban, 26.6% Puerto Rican, 9.7% Mexican, 7.8% Colombian and 4.8% Dominican. The report says other origin groups were excluded due to small sample size.

The median income of eligible voters in Florida by race is $64,000 for Latinos. By comparison, white voters earn $73,000, black voters earn $50,000, multiracial voters earn $68,700, and Asians and Pacific Islanders earn $87,300.

The report says the vast majority of Latino voters in Florida have access to the internet, a smartphone and a car, but fewer have access to broadband internet.