Trump's latest move makes it 'plausible' ex-president loses his home state: expert
Donald Trump's decision to spread misinformation about Haitian immigrants eating family pets in Ohio may cost the former president his own home state, experts suggest.
Trump, who repeated the debunked claim at his recent debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, is a Florida voter who has long counted on the state as a Republican stronghold.
But it wasn't too long ago that Florida was a swing state, and it could return to Democrats once again due to the state's high number of Haitian voters, according to a LA Times report.
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"Florida is a longshot for Democrats. Trump won the state twice, including a 3-percentage-point victory in 2020. And the state has turned more Republican since then with the landslide reelection of Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022," the Times reported Friday. "But it was considered a battleground before that. And recent polls showing Trump with margins of between 2 and 6 percentage points over Vice President Kamala Harris. That and an abortion rights ballot initiative that could turn out liberal voters have given Democrats glimmers of hope that they can at least be competitive and perhaps swing some down ballot races."
The report adds, "The state’s Haitian American population, estimated at about 500,000, is the nation’s largest and votes predominantly Democratic."
LA Times continues: "Haitian immigrants concentrated in South Florida, who came fleeing economic and political instability, have risen to fill numerous seats in city and county commissions, the state legislature and Congress. Haitian doctors and nurses fill hospitals in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and the surrounding suburbs. Many newer immigrants take back-breaking jobs that native-born Floridians turn down."
The report also quotes a local expert in saying it's “plausible, probably not probable” that Harris wins Florida.
"Estimates of Haitian American voters range from 100,000 to 300,000, but Fernand Amandi, a Democratic pollster based in Miami, said they probably account for less than 1% of the voting population. Many were already motivated to elect Harris, the daughter of a Jamaican immigrant who has led the Biden administration’s foreign policy in the Caribbean," the report states.
Conservative Army Iraq War Veteran Peter Henlein also weighed in on this, saying, "It’s really unlikely Trump is going to lose Florida….but I think there is a risk he does severe long term damage to the party here."
"We are a highly diverse state with 500k Haitians and 200k Indian Americans, and yet DeSantis was able to win here by 20 points without demonizing either group," Henlein said Thursday. "Do we want Trump to drive those people away from the GOP forever?"
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