Latino voters in Florida could help Republicans win in key races
By Salena Zito
November 3, 2018 | 7:35pm
Leandro Ruiz Fernandez spent his entire summer in 2016 as a “super-volunteer” for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in the battleground state of Florida.
He made phone calls. He registered people to vote. Anything to help get her elected.
Then 18, he had just registered to vote for the first time as a Democrat.
“I was always interested in politics, and I always wanted to do something. I really wanted to see which party I could identify with. I saw Clinton as the best choice out of the two candidates,” he said from his home in the suburban Miami neighborhood of Kendall.
Clinton went on to win the 27th Congressional District that he lives in by a staggering 20 percentage points, but she lost both his state and the election to Donald Trump.
After Trump was elected, Fernandez said he wasn’t one of those Hillary supporters who was crying in the streets. He decided to step back, wait and watch.
Less than three months after Trump was inaugurated, Fernandez was forced to pay attention again when Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the first Cuban-American elected to Congress, who had represented his district for over 35 years, announced her retirement.
The open seat became one more battleground for Republicans desperate to hold on to their House majority in the midterms.
Nearly 60 percent of registered voters are Latino in this coastal district, which is also sprinkled with the suburban affluent communities expected to reject Republicans on Election Day.
It also boasts young voters like Cuban-born Fernandez who are college-educated (he is studying history at Florida International University) and many registered Democrats.
But this year Fernandez did something surprising. He changed sides.
“I just switched my registration to Republican the other day,” he said.
https://nypost.com/2018/11/03/latino-voters-in-florida-could-help-republicans-win-in-key-races/?utm_source=twitter_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site%20buttons&utm_campaign=site%20buttons