The basic electoral math in Florida looks something like this: Democrats roll up their votes in South Florida and Miami-Dade County, Republicans pad their numbers in the north and statewide races are decided in the Interstate 4 Corridor in between.
This year, however, the I-4 Corridor is taking a back seat in some of those calculations. President Donald Trump’s campaign and Republicans are making inroads in Miami-Dade County, the state’s most populous, forcing the Biden campaign to scramble in response to the threat to the wellspring of Democratic votes.
In a county where more than half of the residents are born outside the mainland U.S. — mostly in Latin America — Trump has outspent Joe Biden’s campaign by about $4 million on TV in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale media market, much of it on Spanish-language ads. The president’s conservative allies have dominated Spanish-language social media and WhatsApp messaging to Spanish-speakers. And the Miami-Dade County GOP has fielded candidates in five key local races, all of whom are Cuban-American, which could help turn out the pro-Trump Republican vote.
