LIBRE Initiative field director Jeandelize Burgos (left) and LIBRE’s Florida state director Cesar Grajales (right) talk with Guadalupe Rodriguez (center) as they canvas for the conservative political organization in Buenaventura Lakes, Fla. (Sean Sullivan/The Washington Post)

Republican Bob Cortes was the first Puerto Rican mayor of this Orlando suburb. He became the first Puerto Rican from Seminole County to be elected to the state House.

He doesn’t want to be the first Puerto Rican from the county to lose his seat.

But the demographics are changing rapidly here in Central Florida, a mecca of undecided voters stretching from Orlando to Tampa that helps swing state elections and that is rapidly becoming home to more Puerto Ricans, Venezuelans, Colombians and Dominicans.

Cortes said he campaigns as “an elected official who happens to be Hispanic, not a Hispanic elected official,” adding that that means “understanding the diversity of the people who live in the district.”

Unlike a generation ago, when the state’s large Cuban American population was devoted to the GOP, these new Latino voters are less likely to support Republican candidates such as Cortes — and they are increasingly unlikely to register with either political party. “No Party Affiliation” voters — known as “NPAs” in local political vernacular — now account for 26 percent of Florida’s electorate, the fastest-growing bloc in the state, according to the latest state voter statistics.

Florida Republicans nominated former presidential candidate Marco Rubio for a second term in the U.S. Senate in a primary election held August 30. (The Washington Post)

Republican candidates up and down the ballot also have to contend with GOP nominee Donald Trump, who has alienated many Latinos in the state with his talk of immigrant criminals, a massive border wall and aggressive deportations.

The combination of factors sets the stage for a remarkably unsettled election for Republicans in Florida, a crucial battleground state that could help determine who wins the White House and Senate. Sen. Marco Rubio — who won the GOP primary on Tuesday — is a top target for Democrats in November, while Trump is trailing Democrat Hillary Clinton in the presidential contest here.

Susan MacManus, a political science professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa, who compiled the data on unaffiliated voters, said the shrinking of the parties means Florida Democrats and Republicans are “fighting for their lives.”

The Trump factor

But, she added, “Republicans are a little bit more at risk because of what Trump has already done. That’s why his changing commentary to talking about borders instead of deportation is probably too little, too late.”

[Donald Trump suddenly sounds like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio on immigration]

Home to nearly 1.1 million Puerto Ricans, the Sunshine State could surpass New York as the largest home of island transplants by the end of the year. As U.S. citizens, Puerto Ricans are not immigrants, but many consider Trump’s harsh attacks on immigrants an affront to the entire Hispanic diaspora.

“He’s a liar. He’s a flat-out liar. I don’t think that man is capable of running this country. He’s a time bomb,” said Lisa Diaz, 51, of Kissimmee, another Orlando suburb. She’s Puerto Rican and moved to the area in 2006 from New York.

Bob Cortes is the first Puerto Rican from Seminole County, Fla., to be elected to the Florida state legislature. (Steve Cannon/AP)

Cortes is well aware of such feelings, which is why he warns that in Florida, “Mr. Trump has his work cut out for himself.”

Cortes’s district straddles Seminole County, a predominantly Republican area, and Orange County, a Democratic stronghold. He won his House seat in 2014 by defeating a well-known Democratic incumbent, betting that his name recognition would help him win white and Republican voters, while Hispanics would be drawn out to vote for one of their own.

“To be frank, that’s exactly what happened,” he said. Having studied the numbers closely, he found that out of nearly 14,000 registered Hispanic voters in his district at the time, 5,000 showed up to vote in a non-presidential election — a record total — and most voted for him.

Koch brothers step in

This year, he and other Florida Republicans may also be helped by outside forces waging their own efforts to win over Latinos.

The LIBRE Initiative, backed by the wealthy industrialists David and Charles Koch, is a nonprofit political group designed to woo Latinos to the conservative political cause. Active in 10 states, the group is especially focused on reaching the fast-growing Puerto Rican population in Florida.

[Koch brothers make push to court Latinos, alarming many Democrats]

In a sign of the urgency conservatives have displayed in trying to win over Puerto Ricans in Florida, LIBRE for the first time sent a team to Puerto Rico in early March to set up a booth at a business expo aimed at people thinking of relocating to Florida.

Cesar Grajales, LIBRE’s Florida state director, said Puerto Ricans’ high rate of civic engagement means that any candidate or organization with serious designs on winning needs to court them.

“They vote and they vote a lot,” he said.

During a recent walk around neighborhoods in Buenaventura Lakes — an Orlando suburb that has been called “Little Puerto Rico” — Grajales and other staffers and volunteers wore blue-and-white T-shirts and carried iPads pre-loaded with local addresses from state voter files.

If someone answered the door, volunteers asked a series of politically loaded questions to gauge a resident’s potential support for the Kochs’ mostly pro-business concerns. They never bring up Trump; questions about him might be met with a slammed door.

On the Puerto Rican debt crisis, Grajales asked Jorge Reyes in Spanish whether the island’s political leaders “deberían ser responsables” — should be held responsible.

“Yo creo que si,” Reyes said — I think so.

On Obamacare, Grajales claimed that 15 health insurance companies in Florida planned to raise their rates by at least 17 percent this year. In Spanish, Grajales asked: Should taxpayers be forced to pay for the “mistakes” of Obamacare?

“Claro que no,” Reyes said — of course not.

Yet Reyes, 82, a Puerto Rican Democrat, said he planned to vote for Clinton and other Democrats.

“To me, the other guy is nuts,” he said, adding later that he thinks Trump is “dividing his own party — the way he talks.”

When Grajales and Jeandelize Burgos, a field director, knocked on the door of Guadalupe Rodriguez, 63, he quickly asked in Spanish: “You’re not with Trump?”

“No, no,” responded Grajales.

“No, we’re not with a party,” Burgos said in Spanish, laughing nervously.

Rodriguez said later that he’s opposed to Trump because he “is against us.”

“I don’t like to hate nobody, but when somebody looks at you like roaches?” he said later.

Cortes said he’s aware of what LIBRE is doing, but hasn’t met with the group. Still, he appreciates anyone who talks up conservative ideology to Hispanic voters.

“The moment we start doing that, we’ll start getting more voters to join the Republican Party,” he said.

Cortes knows that the influx of new immigrants across Central Florida could eventually transform his district and make it harder for a Republican like him to keep winning. But the transformation also means greater influence for fellow Hispanics.

“Ten years ago, you’d have a Hispanic candidate around here and he’d come in last. Now, he’s winning races,” he said. “It’s proof that we’re going to have even greater influence.”

And if Trump loses this year and takes Republicans like Cortes down with him?

“We’ve got four years to figure out what he did wrong and not do it again,” he said.

An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified Cortes as a state senator. He is a member of the Florida House of Representatives.