Due to the state’s large Cuban voting bloc, the Latino vote had been reliably Republican. For example, President George W. Bush won both the Hispanic vote and the state in 2004. But 2008 represented a tipping point: More Latinos were registered as Democrats than Republicans, and the gap has only widened since then. This has led to the growing influence of Democrats among the state’s Hispanic voters in 2008 and 2012, two presidential elections in which Barack Obama carried both Hispanics and the state. At the same time, the number of Latino registered voters in Florida who indicate no party affiliation has also grown rapidly during this time, and by 2012 had surpassed Republican registrations. [...] Among all Floridians, registered Democrats outnumbered Republicans in 2014. This is due in part to Hispanics, who accounted for 72% of growth in the number of registered Democrats between 2006 and 2014. During this time, the number of Hispanic registered voters increased by 56%, while the number of Hispanics identifying as Democrats or having no party affiliation each increased by about 80%.

Clinton, meanwhile, makes what Grenier says is an implicit appeal to non-Cuban Hispanics — another key demographic in Florida and other general election swing states — when she argues that the U.S. position on Cuba has weakened American influence throughout the hemisphere.

Florida is now home to 4.5 million Latinos, who make up 24 percent of the Sunshine State's population—up from 17 percent in 2000. In fact, Pew Research says the Latino population is growing faster than Florida's overall population, which could have a profound impact on 2016 since the state's new Latino voters are growing increasingly more Democratic.Hillary Clinton is already working to capitalize on this trend. After addressing the National Urban League in Florida last Friday, Clinton sprinted off to give a speech in Miami in which she called for ending the Cuba embargo. Both Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio have criticized President Obama's decision to reopen diplomatic relations with Cuba—a view shared by many of Florida's older Cuban Americans. But Clinton's message is an appeal to the state's younger Cuban Americans and its growing segment of non-Cuban Latinos—two voting blocs that both skew more Democratic.