Posted on 01/13/2019 3:04:22 PM PST by Hojczyk
Nine years ago Rick Scott, then a Florida businessman, sat down with a group of self-described jaded Republican strategists to discuss what it would take for him to run for governor.
“You are not going to get anywhere with Hispanic voters, but we’ll try,” said Wes Anderson, founding partner and pollster for OnMessage Inc. (where my co-author Brad Todd works), who was explaining what voters were available to a Republican to win.
“Rick Scott looked at us and just shook his head. He said, ‘I reject your dismissal of Hispanic voters. We are going to pursue them, and we're gonna pursue them hard,’” explained Anderson.
“He flat-out rejected that there was this big chunk voters that you can just write off and you're never gonna get,” Anderson said.
It is a rejection every Republican candidate running for office should emulate.
Scott, who won by about 1/10 of a percentage point over incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson, did so despite suffering the same poor performance among suburban voters all Republicans did. He made up for that shortfall with his healthy support among Hispanic voters for his win.
Scott won 48 percent of the Hispanic vote, just about the same portion he won in his two gubernatorial victories.
Anderson said his biggest takeaway from the survey is this is a result of eight years of showing up. “That is not six months of showing up, that's eight years of showing up and speaking Spanish the best you can,” he said. “You don't get to that level where a Republican sitting governor has 58 percent of Hispanic voters saying that he cares about them without doing that.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
Worth reading the whole article
“I think what we have to talk about is what people care about. They care about security. I don’t meet people that don’t want border security. And I’ll talk to anybody, right?” he said.
“People want a secure border, and they want everybody to have the same chance. And we want it to be fair. And I agree with them. And so what we’ve got to talk about is the dream of this country, which I lived. From public housing, getting to go build companies, be governor now senator. You’ve gotta talk about, ‘I want that for you. And I want that for your children, and I want that for your grandchildren.’ And it’s gotta be sincere,” he said.
Aren’t Florida Hispanics Cuban? I think they are far different than Mexican etc. Hispanics.
Key takeaway:
[Anderson said his biggest takeaway from the survey is this is a result of eight years of showing up. “That is not six months of showing up, that’s eight years of showing up and speaking Spanish the best you can,” he said. “You don’t get to that level where a Republican sitting governor has 58 percent of Hispanic voters saying that he cares about them without doing that.”]
Where ethnic votes are a factor, politicians need to show up at major ethnic events, not just before election time, but annually. Beto O’Rourke came really close to upsetting Ted Cruz because he showed up at events all over Texas.
SPIT! Does he do the same for Poles, Irish, Germans, Chinese, etc?
This sentence means he's given them control. If they must talk to a prospective pol in spanish then it means they are making a fool of him while using him. He's lowering himself to a servile in my opinion and they will never give him respect.
It’s easier to build the wall and deport them.
Mixed bag of Hispanics....Rs usually get 55 to 60% of the vote. More next election.
“This sentence means he’s given them control. If they must talk to a prospective pol in spanish then it means they are making a fool of him while using him.”
You’ve got it. The flood gates are wide open and our mercenary politicians don’t care.
“More next election.”
Yeah, more ‘natural conservatives’ will vote for conservatives because they love America instead of gibsmedat.
He probably did a lot better with Cubans and he did with Puerto Ricans and other Hispanics. Due to the historically GOP Cuban vote, a catch all Hispanic category for Florida is not very useful.
If not for that ballot design, I don’t think Scott would have won.
But, hey, thank goodness dems are so f’ing stupid.
It’s either that or lose. I guess you prefer he would have lost. There’s no other alternative
You overlook Broward county supervisor has her all black staff fill out 70,000 absentee ballots that were not reported to the state by election day and they still lost .
I worked at the precincts and the recounts .
Desantis and Scott got way Dem votes then they are reporting .
And lots of voters intentionally under voted.
It was the Number question at the Precinct .
They aren’t all Cuban, but many of them are. But the Hispanic vote is a bit different in Florida than California. A lot of inroads were made when Jeb was governor. It’s been frustrating to Democrats that Florida still hasn’t gone solid blue because this was supposed to happen years ago with the demographics shift.
I’m of Puerto Rican descent and my uncle and cousin in Florida supported the Senator. The narrative was that Puerto Rican’s would overwhelmingly support a democrat but that turned out to be false, thank God! You would be surprised how many PR’s support President Trump.
Scott did very well with Cuban-Americans (a majority of whom vote Republican, anyhow, albeit not in such high percentages as during the 1980s or in the 2000 election), but he still would have lost had he not greatly outperformed President Trump (and, to a lesser extent, DeSantis) among Puerto Rican voters. Rick Scott worked hard for the Puerto Rican vote, both before and after Hurricane María (including—and I’m not making this up—running Spanish-language TV ads on a local channel in Puerto Rico during the MLB Playoffs), and it paid off.
“Hispanic” is a made up word. Most are Indians, Islanders are shipwreck people. Think about it!
Outreach like what he did works. Even if they don’t speak Spanish, other Republican candidates should take note if this.
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