CNN Rubio wins with 62% pf Hispanic vote; Have Wexler and other Crist Ds sunk Sink?

[ProgressiveEconomist]

And split the Democratic Party for the foreseeable future?

Has the Florida Democratic Party become the party of abandoning minority candidates, driving part of the minority vote toward Republicans/

It appears that Republicans will get 80 percent of the Florida vote for Senate, putting a severe damper on downticket Democratic candidates. Nice going, Democratic Crist supporters.

WHAT'S YOUR OPINION?

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

1. I will be very surprised if Sink wins

Hoping, but not expecting

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

2. Don't over-read that number. Florida is different.

Many Florida hispanic voters are Cubans who are traditional Republican voters.

[EmeraldCityGrl]

18. Very important point.

[tsuki]

26. And will tell you in a heartbeat that they are not Hispanic. nt

[blondeatlast]

37. Exactly x 2. nt

[ProgressiveEconomist]

32. Your factoid is obsolete . Non-Cubans became a mojority of the Florida Hispanic vote in 2008

up from 30 percent a decade earlier. McCain got only 42% of the Florida Hispanic vote two years ago. Rubio's 62% is a remarkable achievement, and cannot all have come from Cubans IMO.

From http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/epaper/2008/11/16/a18a_moffettcol_1116.html

"Florida, Hispanics, and change

By Dan Moffett
Palm Beach Post columnist
Sunday, November 16, 2008

(In 2008) Hispanics made up more than 9 percent of the electorate, according to exit polling, and more than 67 percent of them voted for Barack Obama, who won by 6.7 points. The math suggests that Hispanic voters provided that margin of victory. ... But the numbers in Florida are the most intriguing. Mr. Obama won 57 percent of the Hispanic vote, surpassing President Bush's 55 percent in 2004, and Sen. McCain got 42 percent. The important story behind the numbers is the continued erosion of the Cuban-American voting bloc that Republicans have counted on for decades.

A decade ago, Cuban-Americans accounted for more than 70 percent of the state's Hispanic voters. In 2008, for the first time, non-Cubans made up a slight majority. Around Orlando, Puerto Rican voters are growing in size and influence. In South Florida, large numbers of immigrants from Latin America have gained citizenship and registered to vote. Across the state, Mexican-Americans have settled and entered the system. As voters, these non-Cubans have priorities that are much more traditionally Democratic and in line with Hispanics outside Miami-Dade County: jobs, the economy, education, and, yes, immigration reform. ...

Exit polls showed that 84 percent of Miami-Dade Cuban-Americans over 65 voted for Sen. McCain, and 55 percent of those 29 or younger voted for President-elect Obama. Young Cuban-Americans, most of whom were born here, are leaving the Bay of Pigs to history and questioning the value of a failed trade embargo. To many of them, Castro is a tired anachronism who grows increasingly irrelevant and is hardly worth the political preoccupation. Florida's Hispanic voters behave more like those in Nevada and Colorado. This is bad news for Republicans. In 2000, Miami-Dade's Cuban-Americans rescued the election for George W. Bush. It's doubtful that another Republican will be so lucky."

[blondeatlast]

35. Exactly. nt

[madfloridian]

3. That is not a true post about motives in this case.

And it is an unfair portrayal.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

9. What's unfair about portraying Wexler as a party splitter. That's what he DID didn't he?

I didn't say anything about his motives, because I don't know his motives, just the results of his actions. Do you know Wexler's motives?

[Dappleganger]

36. No, but what he did certainly did NOT help.

[democrat2thecore]

4. Rick Scott is target #1 for me...

That guy and his hospital chain....I can't even talk about it without getting pissed. Personal story involved.

[tsuki]

27. I will be looking at the state contracts when he awards the welfare &

unemployment drug testing contracts.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

40. Midnight is coming up and it's Scott 49% Sink 47% with 90% of the vote in,

2.47million vs 2.35 million.

There's still a chance Sink will pull out a win, but it's way closer than it should have been IMO, because Crist Democrats split their party and humiliated a VERY RARE statwide minority candidate.

[SoCalDem]

5. What's needed is a change in the law

ANYONE who is defeated in ANY primary, should NOT be allowed to participate in an election within 12 months of the loss.

Candidates should not be allowed to "repackage themselves", and continue to muddy the waters for the real candidates, by running ads and mucking up the works.

Meeks might have had a chance, had Crist not been so determined to keep running.

[democrat2thecore]

7. Couldn't agree more. Thank you. -nt

[Gaedel]

10. Crist wasn't defeated in the primary

He saw how the wind was blowing and never entered the GOP primary. He filed as an Indy right off the bat.

[SoCalDem]

12. oops.. I thought he was defeated..well then

perhaps they should not be allowed to change party in order to run.. maybe they should be required to be affiliated with their "running" party for say..maybe 12 months prior to filing?

[Gaedel]

42. I am not sure that eould be workable.

I do agree that candidates should not be allowed to do a Lieberman or a Murkowski. If you run in a primary and lose, you should be disqualified from being on the November ballot.

Crist thought he could add in some independents and Dems to the less extreme GOP base and make Rubio irrelevant. Unfortunately, he POed a lot of GOP voters when he did it.

[blondeatlast]

38. WORD. I'm laying this disaster entirely on Charlie Crist's doorstep. nt

[KaryninMiami]

6. Most of us Dems who voted for Crist are NOT his supporters

Most of us did it with heavy hearts and out of desperation, praying that it might keep a monster like Rubio from winning, knowing however, on some deeper letter that it wasn't going to matter. Rubio had the Bush-Rove-GOP machine behind him. Meek did his best but he wasn't ready to take on that machine- he just wasn't strong enough and he should have pulled out a month ago. I'm sorry to say that but that's how many of us feel. He could have pulled out and let Crist win and then he'd have had Crist in payback mode to the Dems (and to him) which would not have been a bad thing. For the good of the party and the country, he should have pulled out.

[2Design]

11. dems did vote for meek - repubs voted for crist - if crist had a chance

he should have beat rubio in primary - he helped HIS REPUBLICAN party get a senate seat they did not deserve - time to move from Florida - it is going back into the dark ages and 1932 on a quick slippery slope - soon we could be cuba

[sixmile]

13. Don't be compelled to explain Florida politics to anyone

Meek never stood a chance.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

15. You don't think Crist maximized his split of Democrats? IMO most hard-core Meek

supporters NEVER would have voted for a Republican like Crist and would rather have stayed home with only two Republicans on the ballot. What percentage of the Florida vote is African-American? How many African-American votes will Crist have gotten when all is said and done?

[demo dutch]

17. voted for Crist....only because the eventual outcome was too grim to consider

[2Design]

8. if hispanics voted for rubio - welcome to a third world country -

you have done yourselves in

[Patsy Stone]

14. Wrong

and no Florida Democrat, whether they voted for Meek or Crist, voted for Rick Scott.

[demo dutch]

16. That's a fact!

[ProgressiveEconomist]

19. I'm not suggestimg Democrats voted for Scott. I'm suggesting they may have stayed home,

sinking Sink, Grayson, and other fine Democrats.

Except for Florida Hispanics, who have been up for grabs, going 56% for Dubya and then overwhelmingly for Obama two years ago. Now many apparently gave gone over to a Republican with a Hispanic surname, rather than to a Kendrick Meek who was abandoned humiliatingly by towp-shelf Democrats like Wexler.

[demo dutch]

21. Big dem counties have not reported yet, only little Rep counties in N. Fl have reported, so wait!

[Patsy Stone]

22. Miami-Dade hasn't updated their site

since 7:40 p.m. :wtf:

[demo dutch]

23. log on to the State site, Broward, Palm Bch,Dade , Jax not reported at all

http://enight.elections.myflorida.com/CountyStatusPage.aspx

[ProgressiveEconomist]

25. The vote has not been counted, but the exit polls have. Polls are closed. Exit polls

are not going to change much (except to be aligned with the final vote).

Rubio will have gotten sixty-some sercent of the Florida Hispanic vote, mark my words.

[Patsy Stone]

24. I see

but, still, no. :)

If Florida Democrats had one reason to turn out it was to stop the Bush machine and their puppet, regardless of which candidate they chose instead. If anything, it's a normal insane Florida swing-wide to the right move, because we have a lot of impressionable idiots in this state. Personally, I was surprised Florida went back to blue for Obama. And, as wonderful as Alan Grayson is, the fact that he ever got elected in Orlando was a most pleasant fluke. Sorry, Alan. :loveya:

[demo dutch]

28. More worried about Sink/Scott, Rubio was to win all along, since Dem/moderate vote

was split, we were never going to survive that one! I will probably lose my Rep Ron Klein, who will be replaced by Allan West, a tea partying woman hating biker!

[Patsy Stone]

29. That one is a stunner

Wasn't he also charged with murder? Oy.

[demo dutch]

30. Yup some investigation by the DOD

[Patsy Stone]

31. Hey! Miami finally updated! 417 of 826 reporting

At least here Sink and Gelber are winning. Amendment 1 is losing, but not by much at the moment. Idiots.

[tblue37]

33. At least he had 2 years in the House to make a national name for himself, so he can do as Dr. Dean

did and keep fighting the good fight in a variety of ways.

[Patsy Stone]

34. I hope so.

I think he's got a great future in the party. :patriot:

[demo dutch]

20. To defeat Rubio would have meant to defeat the Jeb Bush machine, a tough call in FL

[lpbk2713]

39. Don't tell me negative ads don't work.

Most of the ads these assholes put out were slamming their Dem opponent.
And that shitbird Scott avoided cameras for the last three weeks like they were ebola infected.
Today Florida took a giant step bacward about sixty years worth.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

41. Well, it appears that the answer to the question at the top of the OP is YES, although

none of the media have called the FL governor race yet, and there could be a recount.

With 99 percent of the vote in, it's
Scott 49% 2,553,434
Sink_ 48% 2,500,510

Nice going, Crist "Democrats"!