The two candidates have differing strategies in a state where turnout among Hispanic voters could sway the entire election – and it’s a must-win for Trump

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

In Little Havana, a vibrant Latino neighborhood just west of downtown Miami, a queue of a couple of dozen prospective voters had formed outside one of Hillary Clinton’s field offices.

Sandwiched between an insurance company and immigration counsel office, the group had arrived for tickets to a free Jennifer Lopez concert. But there was one caveat: to attend the Saturday evening show, at Bayfront Park on Miami’s Biscayne Bay, fans were first required to visit a Clinton campaign field office.

It was one of the many creative ways in which the Democratic nominee’s campaign was seeking to engage likely voters in the critical battleground of Florida, a state with a key role in determining whether Clinton or her Republican opponent Donald Trump is elected on 8 November as the next president of the United States.

Inside this modest campaign space, one of 82 Clinton field offices in the Sunshine State, yellow-painted walls bore signs that read phrases such as “Juntos Se Puede” (Together We Can) and “Why build a wall against Hispanics when they built this country?”

“English or Spanish?” a volunteer asked as two sisters stepped into the office hoping to secure a pair of concert tickets. “Spanish,” they responded.

Azalia and Lucia Rodriguez, both US citizens originally from Nicaragua, had already made up their mind. Trump had hit a nerve, they said, within Florida’s sprawling Hispanic community.

“If you don’t vote, that’s an extra vote for Trump,” said Lucia, a 19-year-old college student. “I have family members that might be deported, and just to be safe I wouldn’t vote for him.”

Azalia, a 27-year-old in real estate, put it even more bluntly when asked why she was voting for Clinton: “Well, I’m Hispanic and I don’t like what Trump says.”

Turnout among Hispanic voters might sway the outcome of the election in a state where one of the fastest-growing demographics in the country holds substantial influence. A half-dozen volunteers worked the phones in both English and Spanish, targeting a list of likely Clinton supporters while making a strong push for the early voting process that began on 24 October.

The Obama campaign worked out of the same office in 2012, recognizing a shift in demographics. While the Cubans who dominated the area typically voted Republican, a younger generation has in recent years leaned Democratic; and non-Cuban Hispanics, a reliably Democratic voting bloc, also increasingly live in the area.

In 2000, a controversial recount in Florida determined whether Al Gore or George W Bush would become president. Sixteen years later, the state is still vital terrain in the presidential race – Trump, trailing Clinton in other must-win swing states, needs to secure the state’s 29 electoral votes to have a path to victory.

How will the election be decided? The president is chosen through the electoral college, in which each state is assigned a ​certain ​number of ​votes called ​electoral votes (EVs) ​. Electoral votes (EVs) ​, ​which are tied ​ultimately based on population. California has the most EVs, with 55; eight of the least populous states have only three apiece. Most states give all their electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the state popular vote. ​ as state after state reports results, the candidates' tallies build. Whichever T ​A presidential candidate who claims ​ a majority – ​ at least 270 ​out ​of the 538 EVs ​– ​wins the election. ​Many states' preferences are clear beforehand, thanks to p ​ Polling and precedent mean the preferences of many states are clear beforehand, resulting in a focus on "swing" states ​. The focus on election night is on "swing states" that could go either way ​. Donald Trump needs a sweep of swing states (watch Ohio, Florida and North Carolina, among others) to win.

But roughly 15 miles away, a Trump field office in West Miami one of 29 paid for by Republican Party of Florida, was bustling not with likely voters but with volunteers making do with limited resources.

A handful unloaded boxes containing just under 110,000 door hangers, while others were constructing Trump-Pence yard signs. But of over a dozen phones, only two were occupied.

Many of the volunteers, comprising mainly older Cubans, complained of an election that was rigged.

The media was in Clinton’s pocket, the volunteers argued, and even the Republican establishment was colluding to defeat the real estate mogul who earlier this year defied all odds to become the GOP’s nominee for president.

“I’m here for Donald Trump, not for the Republican party,” said Abraham Alvarez, a 47-year-old ramp supervisor at Miami international airport who for the last month has been volunteering for the campaign unpaid.

“Have you heard of the New World Order?” he added, invoking the conspiracy about a globalist elite that plans to take control of the world through authoritarian rule. “The whole establishment, they’ve been working on this for a long time.”

To Floridians like Alvarez, the election had already been rigged in Clinton’s favor.

It is highly unlikely that the outcome on 8 November will be anything like that of 2000, when the result of the month-long recount over Florida’s electoral votes was ultimately decided by the US supreme court after vicious partisan squabbling over hanging chads and butterfly ballots. Trump’s campaign trails Clinton in the majority of public polling.

But the campaign is nonetheless likely to be just as hard-fought in a state such as Florida, which in many ways resembles a confederation of fiefdoms.

Florida’s northern panhandle is the heart of the old south. Live oak trees are draped with Spanish moss and residents speak in slow southern drawls. South Florida is as much a part of the Caribbean as the United States, and Spanish is as widely spoken as English.

In between is an ethnic hodgepodge: north of Miami, in Palm Beach and Broward Counties, there are heavily Jewish enclaves descended from transplanted New Yorkers; in Orlando, there is a rapidly growing Puerto Rican community fleeing the island’s economic crisis, while in the Villages, there is an entire city of over 150,000 residents who are all transplanted retirees.

Recognizing the state is beholden to neither the Democrats nor the Republicans, both Clinton and Trump graced Florida this week as the clock ticked closer to election day.

Trump held a rally on Tuesday in Tallahassee, an island of Democratic blue in deep-red north Florida where the presence of the state capitol and Florida State University makes the sleepy city comparatively liberal.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Supporters cheer Donald Trump during a rally at the Antique Car Museum property on Tuesday in Tallahassee. Photograph: Mark Wallheiser/Getty Images

There, speaking in front of a farm wagon laden with pumpkins to mark the fall season, Trump made a non-specific pitch for early voting: “Early voting in Florida is under way so make sure you get out and vote. We have a thing going on that they’ve never seen before.”

A more effective pitch was made by volunteers standing at the entrance to the rally who stood holding clipboards with forms for attendees to sign up for absentee ballots.

Clinton made a two-day swing through the state, with stops that included Broward County, a formerly Republican stronghold now solidly Democratic, and Palm Beach, home to Trump’s opulent Mar-a-Lago resort.

Her venues were also strategically chosen: across the street from Clinton’s event in Broward on Tuesday was a polling center which hundreds who attended her rally immediately visited to vote early.

Nate Williams, 37, was accompanied by his six-year-old daughter.

“She don’t like Donald Trump, what he said about women,” he said of his daughter, who clutched a Barbie doll while standing by his side. He was referring to the controversial tape of the Republican nominee bragging about groping women without their consent.

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“She don’t really know the comments,” Williams said. “She just knows he said some real negative things about women.”

Betty Joseph, a native of Haiti residing in nearby Tamarac, said she was concerned about the implications of a Trump presidency.

“I believe that would be civil war,” she said, emerging from the polling site after voting for Clinton. “With his mouth, it could cause a lot of trouble for the country.”

Early voting has long been a key indicator in Florida. In 2012, 4.8 million Floridians cast their ballots before election day, a total higher than the turnout in 44 other states.

But while Republicans have typically held the advantage in early voting, data available thus far finds Democrats encroaching on their lead. Republicans were ahead in early voting by just over 18,000 votes on Tuesday, whereas in 2008 their edge exceeded 113,000 at the same time. Hispanic participation in early voting was also up from previous cycles, likely favoring Clinton based on most public polling of the group.

Democrats also held a seven-point lead over Republicans in new registered voters, according to a memo distributed this week by Clinton’s Florida operation. The campaign also touted closing the longtime Republican advantage in vote-by-mail ballot requests and returns, with roughly 406,000 Democrats having returned their ballots versus 421,000 Republicans.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Supporters of Hillary Clinton try to shake hands with the candidate at a rally at Palm Beach State College on Wednesday. Photograph: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

Even so, polling points to a competitive race – with Clinton ahead of Trump by 3.5 points according to an average of public surveys compiled by various trackers.

Speaking in Coconut Creek on Tuesday, Clinton warned her supporters not to take matters for granted.

“It’s going to be a close election,” she said at Broward College’s North Campus, across from the early voting site. “Pay no attention to the polls. Don’t get complacent.”

Underscoring her commitment to Florida, Clinton’s campaign confirmed she would return to the state as early as Saturday.

Trump, for his part, followed his Florida tour with a jaunt to Washington DC in order to cut the ribbon at his new hotel.

But the Republican nominee has not entirely ignored the need to organize voters at his rallies in the Sunshine State.

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Before an event in September, inside an aircraft hangar in Melbourne, Florida, over two dozen Trump volunteers were making phone calls in an adjacent office while a crowd of thousands gathered outside listened to the Rolling Stones on loop as they awaited the former Apprentice host.

Trump supporters have long viewed crowd sizes as an indicator of their candidate’s prospects, despite little correlation between the number of attendees who show up at a rally and those who turn out to vote.

But as Stella Bueller of Sopchoppy, Florida, told the Guardian at Trump’s rally this week: “If you go back to high school, you’re at a pep rally and who’s the most popular guy? Everyone knows and he ends up being homecoming king. It’s the same.”

Brian Ballard, Trump’s Florida finance chairman, said he felt confident about Trump’s chances.

“There’s certainly momentum,” he said, citing not just internal polling but also enthusiasm for the Republican nominee as evidenced by the fact that roads were shut down around Trump’s Tallahassee rally on Tuesday.

The veteran Republican lobbyist seemed less concerned about the campaign’s rudimentary footprint on the ground, noting that the Republican National Committee, state party and local parties “have always been the backbone of our get-out-the-vote effort”.

Ballard cited conversations with Cuban American legislators to express confidence about Trump’s ability to court at least a faction of Hispanic voters, noting the bloc “is not monolithic”. In fact, he thought, Trump would “do as well as [Mitt] Romney, if not a little bit better.”

But the volunteers who packed Trump’s West Miami field office were somewhat less bullish.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Donald Trump rallies with supporters at the Million Air Orlando airplane hangar in Sanford, Florida, on Tuesday. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Jorge Garces, who emigrated from Cuba in 1962, acknowledged that the Republican nominee’s ground game “lacks a little bit”.

“I don’t know why,” said the 64-year-old retiree. “Sometimes we get as many as 12 volunteers a day, sometimes as little as three.”

Garces was, however, energized by what he claimed was a bias within the media about Trump’s roadmap to the White House – as well as a desire among grassroots conservative voters to send a signal to the establishment in their own party.

“I think the Republican party has lost its message,” he said, “and I think Donald Trump is throwing a molotov cocktail at Washington.”

As for whether Trump would emerge victorious in Florida, Garces confessed he was concerned.

Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s campaign manager, acknowledged in an interview with CBS this week that “the path will be much harder without Florida”. But that is an understatement, given if Clinton wins the state then Trump would have to virtually sweep the remaining battleground states, including seemingly safe Democratic areas like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Colorado.

Complicating matters is polling showing Clinton giving Trump a run for his money in deeply red states such as Arizona, Utah and even Texas, diverting the Republican nominee’s attention with precious little time remaining before election day.

A Republican activist at the Broward College polling site, who declined to be named due to his involvement in local races, said he reluctantly cast his ballot for Trump this week. But after watching hundreds of Democrats queue up to vote early after Clinton’s rally across the street from where he stood, the activist feared the writing was already on the wall.

“Florida will be his death knell,” he said of Trump. “When you’re competing in Texas and Utah two weeks before the election, it’s over.”