Rising Hispanic vote shifts focus off Cuba

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Miami Herald

Rising Hispanic vote shifts focus off Cuba
The potential political might of Florida's non-Cuban Hispanics is growing, and many of those communities are pushing for more influence.
Posted on Mon, Aug. 25, 2008



AL DIAZ / MIAMI HERALD
At Juan Pablo Duarte Park, Richard Charman,
right, talks to fellow Dominicans about US
Presidential candidate Barack Obama and the
need for representation for residents of
Allapattah. Left to right are Pedro Mojica,
Justo Diaz, Juan Vidal, Andres Jeminez,
Carlos Pagan.

BY CASEY WOODS
[e-mail]

Carlos Pereira grinned widely as he stood in the outgoing tide of newly sworn-in citizens leaving a Miami naturalization ceremony. So far, he had registered 328 people, mostly from Latin American countries. Only 62 of them were from Cuba.

''This year is exceptional because there is so much diversity,'' said Pereira, a native of Honduras who heads the Miami-based Center for Immigrant Orientation. ``This change is exciting because it will bring a diversity to political power.''

The trend that Pereira sees in the voter registration trenches mirrors the one pollsters are seeing statewide: There is a new Hispanic majority in Florida, and it is not Cuban.

According to numbers from the Democratic polling firm Bendixen and Associates, 44 percent of the state's 1.1 million Hispanic voters hail from the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua and other Latin American countries -- slightly more than the Cubans, at 40 percent. In 2000, non-Cuban voters represented 19 percent of the Hispanic vote, Bendixen polling shows.

Hispanic Democrats also now outnumber Hispanic Republicans in Florida, making what had long been a relatively predictable voter population for politicians much more fluid.

(My emphasis)





Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/656396.html

[Xipe Totec]

1. Hispanic vote was never focused on Cuba

Only the Cuban vote was focused on Cuba, and concentrated in Florida.