PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. — For the first time since 1988, a Republican presidential candidate won the vote in Miami-Dade County.
Helping drive the change is the increase in Hispanic voters who turned red in this year’s election.
"Guess what? We won, Miami-Dade," Republican Sen. Rick Scott said.
Even in the historically blue Palm Beach County, Donald Trump lost by only 1%.
"I think it was the education. We did a lot of education, we did a lot of voter registration, and we did a lot of billboards in Spanish," said Lydia Maldonado, the President of the Latino Republicans of Palm Beach.
A New York Times exit poll shows President-Elect Donald Trump receiving 45% of Latino votes nationwide, a big increase from 32% Latino support in 2020.
"The Florida Democratic Party was not able to mount a stable counter message to that," said Thomas Kennedy, the spokesman for the Florida Immigration Coalition. "They did not build the robust infrastructure that the Republican party operation built in this state."
Kennedy says Democrats need to do a better job educating voters.
"We've been governed by a Republican trifecta in the state of Florida for 25 years," Kennedy said. "What are we seeing? Crumbling property insurance market. Property taxes are the highest inflation rates in the country."
The Latino Republicans of Palm Beach are trusting Trump to turn things around.
"He's working for us, so now we can demand what we need from him. We need a change," said Maldonado. "The economy was horrible. I want young people to be able to purchase their homes, to be able to be financially free."
