Why has one of Florida's most democratic counties started to support Trump?

From refuting “Democrat propaganda” to “taking advantage of open borders”, why are so many early voters in Miami-Dade moving away from the Democrats?

Read time: 3 minutes

In brief…

• Lewis Goodall reports from Westchester in Miami-Dade county, Florida, speaking to dozens of early voting Trump supporters.
• They explain why they have thrown their weight behind the Republican and why they hate Kamala Harris.
• These people are becoming more and more like Trump in that they “don't accept any objective reality”, Lewis says.

What’s the story?

There are just seven days to go until the US presidential election.

If early voting is anything to go by in this campaign, a pattern is emerging in Miami-Dade county, Florida.

Florida is historically a swing state, but in recent years, it has swung to the right. The state voted for Donald Trump in both 2016 and 2020.

Miami- Dade, however, has voted Democrat in every election since the 1990s. That could be about to change.

This week, Republicans have been pouring into the early voting station at the Westchester Regional Library in Miami-Dade’s western suburbs.

Speaking to early voters outside, Lewis Goodall struggled to find anyone who has not thrown their weight behind Donald Trump.

“The first thing that strikes you is just how many people are voting,” Lewis says.

But why are so many early Miami-Dade voters in the MAGA camp? What is it that attracts them to the former president, and what is it about Kamala Harris they find so detestable?

Early voters in Westchester, Miami tell Lewis Goodall why they're voting for Trump

Why are Trump supporters not phased by claims he is a ‘fascist’ and a threat to democracy?

Last week, John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, said Trump is a “fascist for sure”. Kamala Harris agreed in a CNN Town Hall interview.

But, perhaps predictably, his supporters disagree.

“I'd like to see America be great again, that's it,” one early voter tells Lewis.

“He had four years to become a fascist dictator, and he didn't. So that's just democratic propaganda.”

Another says: “No war, no inflation, four marvelous years with President Donald Trump. We had him great.

“If Trump loses, you're not going to see any burning cities. You're not going to see any rioting in the streets. You're not going to see any breaking into stores, stealing.”

But his supporters did storm the Capitol building on January 6 2020, Lewis notes.

“The Capitol Building was inspired and made by Pelosi, Schumer and all the other clowns”, she wrongly tells Lewis.

“That's how they do it. They make it happen, and then they blame the other person.”

What about his criminal convictions?

Trump has 34 criminal convictions.

But those are just “political”, one voter tells Lewis.

The former president has also been indicted for election interference in Georgia, where he asked the governor to “find the votes” in an apparent attempt to overturn his election defeat in 2020.

“Maybe he had some basis to believe that there were some lost votes”, says another early Republican voter.

What do they make of his language about Mexicans and Hatians?

Trump has previously said of Mexicans that arrive in the US: “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

“It's fake news. I'm Hispanic, so I know he's not racist. He’s never been racist,” one Trump supporter says.

But what aboutwhen Trump falsely claimed Haitian immigrants are eating people’s cats and dogs?

“I don't know where he got that from. I don't know where he got that information. I cannot say yes or no.”

The early voter adds that immigrants are “taking advantage of the open borders, and that's why they infiltrated this country”.

Lewis Goodall vs. Donald Trump: 'Why shouldn't we listen to fascism claims, sir?'

What do they think will happen to the country if Kamala wins?

“Where do we start? Being born in Venezuela, we know exactly what's going on. They're rhetoric, that communist rhetoric, that is coming under the mocking, laughing hyena, as we call her.

“It's devastating for the nation. So right now, what we need is leadership. We need the border closed ASAP,” Lewis is told.

But things are going well in America, Lewis points out. Not like Europe, where economies are stagnating, he puts to one early voter.

She says: “It's being swallowed up by the Muslims, Europe. Europe is in a state of chaos, crisis and emergency. We're not gonna let that happen here in the United States of America.

“We the people are standing up for our rights, for our beliefs, for our nation.”

Why are Trump supporters voting early?

Trump is “the only option right now”, a Miami woman tells Lewis.

“Vote early. Vote in person to avoid little tricky thingies here and there. Do your duty,” she says.

By “tricky thingies”, she means “burning of mailing ballots and stuff like that”.

This comes after hundreds of ballots were damaged in fires that police in Oregon and Washington believe were linked, targeted attacks.

What’s The News Agents take?

Lewis admits that early voting is not necessarily going to tell us anything about how the election will play out.

But what is alarming, he says, is the way in which the Republican voters he spoke to talk about Trump.

“In so many ways, they have become like Trump,” Lewis says,

He notes that they start to “dissemble” during interviews, and “don't accept any objective reality.” Lewis adds: “You are just so endlessly struck by the enduring effect that this guy has had on every element of politics, on millions of people, on the psychology of politics.

“Whether he wins or loses, that just isn't going away.”

Listen in full on The News Agents

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