Trump will try to outdo the Republican Party debate with a rally targeting the Cuban community in South Florida

HIALEAH, Fla. (AP) — Use a city council candidate in the Miami suburb of Hialeah Donald Trump Image on campaign banners. At one polling place this week, many people wore red “Make America Great Again” hats or drove pickup trucks carrying flags bearing the former president’s name.

Outside the venue where the front-runner to win the 2024 Republican presidential nomination will speak on Wednesday, trying to outpace his rivals. We discuss a half-hour drive awaySupporters had been camping out more than a day before and waving to passing passengers.

Hialeah is an important part of South Florida’s highly influential Cuban American community. All of this is in Trump’s interest.

“All we want is to move forward in life. It seems like a lot of politicians, all they do is put obstacles in our way,” said Marcel Perez, a Hialeah resident who went with his wife, mother, uncle and father-in-law to vote on Tuesday. “He is the right person for this position because he opens the door for us.”

Cuban voters in this region helped deliver landslide victories for Trump and other Republicans in recent elections, helping push Florida’s realignment from a traditional swing state to a much more conservative one. Democrats are working to President Joe Biden re-elected They want to win back some Latino votes, and they’ve held a press conference before Republican Party debate Trump rally.

Trump’s campaign is using the event to demonstrate his strength ahead of 2024 and to deliver the message that the five candidates debating in Miami are irrelevant given his commanding lead in the polls. This event will be approved by Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanderswho served as White House press secretary.

Chris Lacivita, a senior Trump adviser, said the campaign will try to win an increasing share of the Hispanic vote in 2024. Trump’s performance among Hispanics in 2020 was better than in 2016, even with Biden holding a majority across the board. The country.

For Biden, Lacivita said, what “was emerging as a problem” is now “a full-blown crisis…which gives President Trump, I think, an opportunity to increase his standing and his vote share in the Hispanic community.”

The Trump campaign plans primary ads on Latino TV and radio along with targeted mailing. In the general election and a potential contest with Biden, Trump’s advisers believe his messages on the economy, the U.S.-Mexico border and cultural issues will resonate with Latinos.

He added: “From the Trump campaign’s perspective in the general election, we will aggressively pursue votes everywhere. “We will compete everywhere for votes,” he said. “We are very optimistic about the fact that we have a receptive audience.”

Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Biden’s campaign manager, held a news conference Tuesday in downtown Miami to promote reelection efforts with Latinos. The Biden campaign ran ads in English, Spanish and Spanish, incorporating words from both languages ​​as many Hispanics in the United States do.

“Latinos continue to support Democrats overwhelmingly,” Chavez Rodriguez said. “However, we don’t take any of this for granted.”

More than 95% of Hialeah’s 220,000 residents identify as Hispanic or Latino, according to Latest census numbers. Most are Cuban or Cuban-American and speak Spanish at home.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis last year became the first Republican in 20 years to win Miami-Dade County, which includes Hialeah, on his way to a landslide re-election victory.

Data from AP VoteCast, a comprehensive national poll of voters found that more than half of Latino voters in the state supported DeSantis for governor in 2022, and a similar number supported incumbent Republican nominee Marco Rubio in that year’s Senate race. Each candidate’s total was higher than the 45% of Latinos who supported Trump for president in 2020.

While voting with his family in Hialeah, Perez credited DeSantis with pushing against COVID-19 vaccine mandates and lockdowns, a position that is a key part of the governor’s presidential campaign pitch. But the 41-year-old noted that DeSantis had a “sacado las uñas,” a Spanish expression meaning someone “pulled out their nails,” or became overly aggressive.

Trump has long courted the Cuban community, which leans more Republican than other Hispanics. According to PewThe majority of Cuban American voters, 58%, identified as Republicans or Republican-leaning before the 2020 election.

In the White House, Trump worked to reverse President Barack Obama’s policy of engagement with Cuba and impose sanctions on socialist governments in Latin America. And as he ran again, Trump did just that He intensified his efforts to attract Democrats as Marxists, socialists and communists, a language that would resonate with Cuban and Venezuelan exiles who fled poverty and political persecution.

After Trump appeared in federal court in Miami in June He has pleaded not guilty to dozens of criminal charges He accused him of withholding secret documents and refusing government demands to return them I went to Versailles, A popular Cuban restaurant, café and bakery in the city’s Little Havana neighborhood that is a popular stop for politicians visiting Miami.

Trump was cheered by waiting supporters and later sang “Happy Birthday” to him one day before his 77th birthday, and a rabbi prayed over him.

Kevin Marino Cabrera, a Miami-Dade County commissioner who will speak at Wednesday’s rally, said Trump is “taking his message directly to voters while the other candidates are debating in a room full of campaign staff and media about a potential running mate or potential vice presidential nominee.” A job in the Trump administration.”

Unlike a debate crowd whose loyalties are divided between the candidates, Trump is expected to attract a raucous crowd that uniformly supports him.

“It’s not a polite crowd. It’s loud and celebratory,” said Dario Moreno, a political science professor at Florida International University. “He’s going to out-argue these guys.”