Univision’s New Florida Poll Shows Biden Leading With Puerto Rican Dems and Sanders Actually Doing Well With Cuban Dems

By:
Mar 16, 2020
4:00 PM

(L-R) Moderators Univision’s journalist Ilia Calderón (hidden), CNN chief Washington correspondent Jake Tapper and CNN political correspondent Dana Bash listen to Democratic presidential hopefuls former US vice president Joe Biden and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders take part in the 11th Democratic Party 2020 presidential debate in a CNN Washington Bureau studio in Washington, DC on March 15, 2020. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

Yes, we know that we are in the middle of a global health pandemic, but as a digital outlet that covers political news through a Latino lens as well as other topics, we aren’t just going to stop covering news we think is relevant, and news of Monday’s Univision Florida polls is the latest example.

According to the polls, in a general election Donald Trump leads Joe Biden with statewide election, 48%-45% (within the margin of error) and also leads Bernie Sanders 49%-42%, but it’s all the Latino findings that we think are very interesting.

In the lead-up to Tuesday’s Florida Primary (yes, it’s still happening) Biden is easily leading Sanders with all registered Florida Democratic voters, 63%-25%. He also leads Sanders with Latinos, 48%-40%, including taking 53% of Puerto Rican Democratic voters to Sanders’ 38%. However, (and we kind of expected this), Sanders holds a 47%-46% lead over Biden with Cuban Democratic voters, pretty much challenging the single-story Fidel Castro narrative that U.S. political media was pushing almost daily. We got a lot of grief for challenging that narrative, but we knew that the Cuban Democratic vote in Florida is a bit more complex.

Latino Rebels founder Julio Ricardo Varela attended a press call about the two Florida polls. Here is a thread of what was shared:

These first two tweets show how both statewide Florida voters and Florida Latino voters place health care at the top election issue. Still, statewide Florida voters —who live in a state that has no international border— placed border security as the second issue. The tweet after that one shows Trump’s approval rating. The President has good approval ratings with Florida statewide voters, Cuban voters, White voters and male voters. Trump is not doing well with Latinos overall, Puerto Ricans in particular and also Black voters.

Next up are favorabilities for Biden and Sanders. Biden has better favorabilities across the board than Sanders.

Against a generic Democrat, Trump does well. However, among Latinos overall, plus the subgroups of Puerto Rican and Black voters, Trump is not doing well at all.

These two tweets show specific general election scenarios. Trump still does very well with Cubans. Maybe this is the time Biden, if he were to become the Democratic nominee, starts doing more work with Puerto Rican voters in Florida. That could get him over the top.

These two tweets would suggest that Democrats will need to do more work with Florida Latinos to come out and vote in November because 60% of Latino support in the state for November won’t be enough to defeat Trump. According to the polls, 75% of Puerto Ricans would never vote for Trump.

These two tweets show that a Never Sanders vote is bigger than a Never Biden vote.

These next two tweets look at candidate past statements and candidate attributes. Socialism!

The “socialism” label has negative connotations with Cuban voters (what a “shock”) and even with Puerto Rican voters to a lesser degree. As for personal economic situations, Puerto Ricans in Florida led all groups in sharing how badly they have done under Trump’s economic policies (post-Hurricane María, anyone?).

These two tweets show strong Florida voter support for minimum wage increase, Medicare for All and a pathway to citizenship for DREAMers.

These two tweets have some interesting takeaways: how so many Puerto Rican and Black voters in Florida feel that discrimination against Latino is a serious problem. Also, how many Florida Latino voters think the Democratic Party is not doing a good enough job with outreach.

Here is the Florida statewide poll:

This is the Florida Latino poll:

On Friday, Univision also released two Arizona polls in the lead-up to the state’s March 17 primary.

This what Univision said about the methodology of the two Florida polls:

Univision Noticias commissioned a statewide poll of Florida registered voters with an oversample of Florida Latinos. The poll was implemented from March 6 – 12, 2020. The statewide portion (N=1,071) contains a margin of error of +/- 3.0 and the Latino portion (n=571) contains a margin of error of +/- 4.1. Democratic primary vote choice was asked of 531 respondents statewide and carries a margin of error of +/- 4.3 and, and 291 Latino Democratic voters, +/- 5.7. Surveys were administered in English or Spanish at the discretion of the respondent and included a mix of cell phone, landline telephone and online self-completed interviews. All respondents are confirmed to be registered to vote. Respondents were randomly selected from the voter file and invitations for interviews were done by live caller, email, or text message. Invitations were bilingual at point of contact and allowed respondent to complete the interview in their language of choice. Among Latinos, 58% completed the survey in English and 42% in Spanish. After data collection was complete a post stratification weight was added to balance the data to the best known Census ACS data on the eligible voting population in Florida. The survey was overseen by Dr. Sergio Garcia-Rios, director of polling for Univision, and administered by Latino Decisions.

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