A big part of the voting public in Florida is seniors, as Florida is a huge retirement destination. In a normal election, this favors the GOP. But what do we know about seniors? There are 40-50% more Floridian women than men over age 65. Normally one might assume that senior women would tend toward the GOP. But this year we have a woman running for President and a real ogre of a p-grabber as the GOP representative. This has to make 100,00 votes difference at minimum. In an historically 50/50 state, we know 100,000 is a huge number.
The other big deal is the Hispanic population. Through most of the rest of the country, this is a huge negative for Trump with all of his attacks on Mexicans and "foreigners" in general. Of course, Florida is different, with a large population of Cuban heritage. They have been nearly 100% for GOP.
But THAT is changing. We know that the first generation Batista exiles are mostly gone now. Most of the Cuban voters are 2 and 3 generations removed from Batista. It seems to me (with no particular expertise in the field) that those lingering anti-Castro attitudes remained, mostly in respect to the elders. I think it can be fairly argued that Obama's moves to open relations with Cuba were not just the right things to do, but were STRATEGIC moves with an eye toward this election. Obama has always taken a long view of things, and I don't think it is a stretch to conclude he reasoned that by making the right moves to open relations, this would weaken the GOP grip on those Floridians with Cuban histories. I don't know how the 3rd generation Cuban population will vote, but it seems to me that the moves to open Cuba have not brought on the apocalypse. In the contrary, it allows families to reunite and communicate for the first time in decades. Obama zen.
I'm just surprised that the experts don't mention this stuff (as far as I have seen).
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