Originally published at Naples Daily News.
Alexandra Glorioso and Isadora Rangel, USA TODAY NETWORK - FLORIDAPublished 4:38 p.m. ET Oct. 29, 2016 | Updated 2:22 p.m. ET Oct. 30, 2016
LAKELAND — Before Donald Trump ever ran for president, Veronica Torres thought of him as the guy who put a lot of Puerto Ricans out of work.
“Donald Trump used to have a business in Puerto Rico,” Torres said. “He was losing profit and closed it. That’s why Puerto Ricans don’t agree with him. So many Puerto Ricans lost their jobs.”
Never mind that Trump didn't own the business Torres mentioned. Trump International Golf Club and Residences in Puerto Rico carried his name, but the GOP candidate never owned or operated the property that declared bankruptcy in 2015, according to a statement that year released to CNBC by Eric Trump, executive vice president of The Trump Organization and son of Donald Trump.
Regardless, Torres blames Trump.
As a new Florida arrival from the economically distressed island, Torres, 31, is part of a tsunami of new voters in Florida who could give Democrat Hillary Clinton an edge this year and fundamentally alter the state's Latino vote for years to come.
Florida's voting rolls, which include only active voters, increased by 737,822 since the last presidential election, and 43 percent of that increase came from an influx of 320,268 more Hispanic voters.
Many of those new Hispanic voters are part of an influx of Puerto Ricans like Torres who have been leaving the island's debt crisis in a mass exodus.
Florida is second only to New York as a destination for 144,000 Puerto Ricans who left the island from 2010 to 2013, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.
Torres last year left Puerto Rico to move to Polk County, which has had an increase of 18,419, or 54 percent, of Hispanic voters since 2012, one of the largest increases in the state since 2012, according to voter registration data.
The Interstate 4 corridor, which stretches from Tampa to Daytona Beach, is where most of the state's Puerto Ricans live, and Polk has had a recent surge in population spilled over from nearby Orange and Osceola counties.
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said Central Florida reminds him “a lot of Miami in the '80s.”
A Hispanic grocery store in Poinciana, on the border of Polk and Osceola counties in Florida, where the third-party group, Organize Now, canvassed voters on Oct. 10. (Photo: Isadora Rangel, Treasure Coast Palm)
“And the Republican Party is going to have to go there, and candidates are going to have to go in there and make an argument as to why our principles and our policies are better for them than what the other side is offering,” Rubio said.
No one expects Clinton to win GOP-safe Polk County. But if the increase in Puerto Rican and other Hispanic voters means she could lose by just 5,000 votes, that actually would be a win for Democrats, said Steve Schale, President Barack Obama’s Florida campaign director in 2008.
Polk historically has been where Republicans run up big numbers. However, Schale and other Democrats hope the growing Puerto Rican vote can stifle that.
“Winning elections is all about managing the margins,” Schale said.
Changing Florida
The increase in these new Puerto Rican voters suggest a shift away from the more conservative Cuban-American vote that has long defined Florida's Hispanic electorate, said Daniel Smith, a University of Florida professor who studies voting trends.
In 1990, Cubans were nearly half of Florida's Hispanic voting population.
In 2014, they were 31 percent, and Puerto Ricans were 27 percent, according to a report by the Center for American Action fund, a firm hired by Clinton’s campaign to gauge support among Hispanic voters.
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Smith said he has witnessed an interesting trend among new voter registrations in Florida this year. When compared to all Florida voters, Non Party Affiliates have grown by 12 percent, while Republicans have decreased by 8 percent and Democrats have decreased by 4 percent, according to his analysis.
Voter Allanfredo Santos, 22, student, Democrat. Santos fills out a vote-by-mail ballot at Unidos Supermarket in Poinciana, on the border of Polk and Osceola counties in Florida. (Photo: Isadora Rangel, Treasure Coast Palm)
Of the state's 818,540 newly registered voters this year, 185,905 are Hispanics nearly evenly split at 42 percent between Democrats and Non Party Affiliates, with almost 15 percent registered as Republicans, Smith's analysis shows.
“These are really eye-popping figures,” Smith said.
An early October poll by the Center for American Action fund, suggests Clinton leads Trump by 57 points among Puerto Ricans in Florida.
Ruy Teixeira, a demographer at the firm, said these Democratic-leaning Hispanic voters were in part due to the Puerto Rican influx. Puerto Ricans, Teixeira said, were younger, poorer and less well educated.
“The key question for people on the ground, is not to persuade them, but rather, getting them to vote,” Teixeira said.
Turnout matters
Like Cubans, Puerto Ricans vote. And because Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, all they need to do is register to vote.
Torres said she grew up learning about American politics through Spanish-language syndicated news, broadcast from the mainland through stations like Univision. Politics is a big part of the culture, so much that island residents have a saying, "La política en Puerto Rico es el pan nuestro de cada día." ("The politic in Puerto Rico is our bread of each day.")
Voter Lusuan Correa, 37, registered as Non Party Affiliate. Lusuan is in front of the Unidos Supermarket in Poinciana, on the border of Polk and Osceola counties in Florida, where the organization, Organize Now was canvassing voters on Oct. 10. (Photo: Isadora Rangel, Treasure Coast Palm)
“If Puerto Rico were a state, it would have the highest turnout of any state in the entire country,” said Christina Hernandez, an Orlando political consultant who led President Barack Obama’s Hispanic vote campaign in 2012.
Even when Hispanics remain registered as NPA, they normally break for Democrats, Hernandez said. She pointed to neighboring Osceola County as an indicator for how Polk could electorally develop in the future. Osceola, Hernandez said, has the highest density of Hispanics in the corridor as well as one of the largest NPA trends across the state, and yet consistently votes Democratic in the presidential cycle.
Some Puerto Ricans in Florida, like other Hispanics, are troubled by Trump's comments about immigrants.
"You have to give opportunities to everybody. This is the land of opportunity," said Lusuan Correa, 37, who lives in Davenport after moving from Puerto Rico 10 years ago. He supports Clinton and is registered NPA.
“I don’t like Trump’s way of being. He’s too much of a tyrant, too conceited.” said Mayra Clemente, 60, who moved from Puerto Rico to Kissimmee last year. She's a Clinton supporter who’s registered NPA.
Voter Mayra Clemente, 60, registered as Non Party Affiliate. Clemente stands in front of Bravo Supermarkets in Poinciana, on the border of Polk and Osceola counties in Florida, where Organize Now was canvassing voters. (Photo: Isadora Rangel, Treasure Coast Palm)
Some of Trump's rhetoric has mobilized Hispanic voters to unify against him, even Puerto Rican citizens who are turned off by anti-immigrant comments, said Eduardo Gamarra, a Florida International University political science professor who studies Hispanic voting trends
“Just like other Latino voters, (Puerto Ricans) are looking at the Trump phenomenon with some kind of awe and fear,” Gamarra said.
Registration push
Most of the Hispanic-focused voter registration efforts are still concentrated in Osceola and Orange counties. But groups like Organize Now, the National Council of La Raza and Florida Immigration Coalition started to focus on specific Puerto Rican communities in Polk County.
Jared Nordlund, senior strategist with La Raza, said this year's voter-registration drive in the Orlando-area that netted more than 20,000 completed forms included Polk County, with about 500 forms from the GOP stronghold.
This year, the Florida Democratic Party submitted 4,028 voter registration forms in Polk, although it's not clear how many actually registered. By contrast, the Republican Party has submitted 460 forms, according to county elections officials.
The time period is telling as well. Sixty-one percent of the Democrats’ registration forms were submitted since Sept. 1, an intense period of voter registration before the Nov. 8 election. Republicans submitted 14 percent of their forms in the same time period.
A Hispanic grocery store in Poinciana, on the border of Polk and Osceola counties in Florida, where the third-party group, Organize Now, handed canvassed voters on Oct. 10. (Photo: Isadora Rangel, Treasure Coast Palm)
Clinton has three offices in Polk County, said Jose Garcia, volunteer and field organizer host. That's up from the one office Obama's campaign opened there, Schale said.
“The coordinated campaign, made of Hillary’s campaign, the Florida Democrats and the Polk County Democrats, is a much more deeply entrenched and effective one than it was in 2012,” said Ellis Moose, chairman of the local Democratic Party.
Republican vote
But Republicans in Polk County believe new voters from Puerto Rico are more receptive to GOP candidates, and will reject Democratic Party policies.
"They’re fairly smart. They’ll see that what they are being offered (by Democrats) is the same thing that’s destroyed their own country,” said Jim Guth, chair of the local Republican Party.
“We’ve got a lot of splintered groups out there that I would refer to as non-partisan,” Guth said. “But they lean heavily Republican in Polk County."
Idalia Valverde, 80, a registered Republican who lives in Polk's Poinciana community, said she supports Trump, as do her children. Valverde said she’s been a Republican since she came to the United States 13 years ago.
She said she supported Trump’s stance on immigration, saying, “I don’t like to have that kind of people coming into this country, if they are not investigated.”
Valverde’s husband, Fernando, said he believed the new arrivals of Puerto Ricans, whose median age in the U.S. is 29 according to the pew Hispanic Center, would be voting Democratic with other millennials.
“They have been contaminated,” he said. “They are more leaning toward gimme, gimme gimme.”