Hispanic Outreach Leads To Ron DeSantis’ Victory

The Hispanic community helped drive Ron DeSantis’ campaign to his victory in the 2018 midterm elections.  Major news organizations are blaming older Cuban’s for leading DeSantis to victory. While they play a substantial part in DeSantis’ victory, there is a new wave of Conservative Hispanics emerging. According to CNN exit polls, Ron DeSantis won 44% of the Hispanic vote in Florida, gained 9% more of the Hispanic vote than Trump did in the 2016 presidential election. Ron DeSantis gained 2 points with Whites, 2 points with Black and 6 points with Hispanics.

In an interview with Rosie Paulsen, leader of Hispanic Conservatives in Action, she told us about an interesting shift emerging in Hispanic engagement in Florida. Rick Scott’s earlier Hispanic outreach engaged the Hispanic community and Ron DeSantis’ campaign was able to pick up momentum off of Scott’s campaign outreach. Paulsen said, “Newly arrived naturalized citizens coming from Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru are voting for the Republican Party.” It is Hispanics from these others groups, who are fleeing Socialist rule in Latin America, that are now emerging as a new Red wave. Older Cubans are still voting for the Republican Party, but the younger generation is flip-flopping. The Democrats hoped that the hurricanes would lead Puerto Ricans to join the blue wave but many of them joined the Red Wave in Florida.

Right now, the Republican party has a unique opportunity to reach out to the Hispanic community and break the control Democrats claim to have over them. The emergence of the LEXIT movement proves that now is the time to increase Hispanic engagement. The Republican party can learn from the Ron DeSantis and Rick Scott campaigns. We need to capitalize on the division in the Democratic party and invest in movements that are encouraging voters to leave the Democratic party. The fact that LEXIT and BLEXIT exist in Trump’s America shows the growing discontentment among Hispanic and African-Americans with the Democratic Party. The RNHA supports these movements and works closely to continue the success of the DeSantis campaign and implement their strategies nationwide.