Since there's no way all of it will be quoted, here are the comments on "what happened with the Latino vote in Miami" I just sent to a reporter, in thread form.

Call this my hot take after a sleepless night, despite the best of intentions to tune the world out. (Abro hilo.)

By all indications, some of Democrats’ worst fears came true in Miami-Dade. While still carrying the county, Biden seriously underperformed among not just Cuban voters, but Latino voters overall compared to 2016, thus making a path to winning Florida much more difficult.

Over the summer, local Democrats in South Florida began sounding the alarm about the lack of attention paid to this crucial portion of the electorate. (In fact, signs of Democratic weakness among Miami Latinos were already obvious in the midterms of 2018.)

But the campaign’s efforts to make up for lost time since were clearly too little, too late.

Contrast this with a Trump administration that has made Miami a constant pitstop since being elected.

The White House has also established an alliance of convenience with an entrenched local Republican machine that once opposed Trump heartily in the 2016 primaries, but which has since helped him fan the flames of antisocialist red-baiting to an unprecedented & despicable degree.

Charges that the Biden campaign was infiltrated with “socialists” or was planning to “turn the United States into Venezuela” should be called out for what they are: calculated attempts to exploit community traumas/memories for electoral gain.

But sadly, in a climate of unprecedented disinformation, especially in Spanish language media and social media locally, they seem to have worked.

The Biden campaign never came up with an effective response to the “socialism” charge, and I worry their efforts to reject that narrative frame at times ended up reinforcing it indirectly.

Racism should not be ignored as a factor here either. In a city where white (especially Cuban) Latinos are the majority and control most major power levers in the city...

...demands for racial justice in the wake of George Floyd’s murder among South Florida’s black communities—and related conspiracy theories pegging Black Lives Matter as part of a global communist vanguard—provoked a particularly virulent pro-“law and order”
response.

I’m not prepared to say that this poor showing w Latino voters in Miami was the only factor that contributed to Biden losing Florida. But if Democrats want to compete in the state again, the national party NEEDS to invest in building better infrastructure in Miami Dade.

It NEEDS to find ways to fight disinformation more effectively and develop channels of communication that can reach more recent immigrant voters. And most importantly, national candidates need to show up here more frequently.

There are too many reasons why the Democratic platform should resonate in Miami. Covid has hit Miami hard, both in terms of health and jobs. Even prior to Covid, Miami was among the most unequal cities in the United States, with costs of living that routinely outstrip wage gains.

Climate change could mean that chunks of this coastal city literally disappear. The very Latino communities that came out so heavily for Trump have some of the nation’s highest Obamacare enrollment rates.

That Democrats are NOT performing better here, especially compared to the Obama era, is incredibly dispiriting.

UPDATE/WORD OF CAUTION. May have jumped gun slightly on one part of this. (Continues below.) https://twitter.com/MJ_Busta/status/1323950938961420288?s=20

Because if these statewide exit polls are right, actually the Cuban vote numbers in FL aren't *sooo* bad compared to 2016 (56% v 53%). (I'd still want to see Miami-specific data tho.) https://twitter.com/realtonyalonso/status/1323986985598525442?s=20

It's "other Latinos" (awful category) where Trump may have made most gains.

(Above is a duplicate of something I already posted separately. But wanted to add to this thread for those reading from the top...)

Ok. So maybe I wasnt wrong at the start. Gains in Cuban community—or precincts that tend to be heavily Cuban—do indeed look pretty significant here. https://twitter.com/mcimaps/status/1323949009539649536?s=21 https://twitter.com/mcimaps/status/1323949009539649536

And this? Just wow. Reinforces the point about national Dems caught sleeping at the wheel. https://twitter.com/mcimaps/status/1323948202505228288