Does Southwest Florida Latino community favor DeSantis or Trump for president?

Gov. Ron DeSantis is officially a Presidential Candidate for 2024. He’s touting his record with Hispanic voters in his last election win, but how does the Southwest Florida community feel about DeSantis?

Southwest Florida is full of Latinos, and a growing number of them are Republican voters.

But will Latinos vote for the Former President, or will many veer toward Governor DeSantis? Tara Jenner, with the Lee County GOP, expects the competition for the Latino vote will be tough, and that’s a good thing.

“I have spoken just recently with a number of individuals of Cuban descent, or who’ve come from Cuba, and their primary goal is to get a Republican back into the White House and not go the way that we are currently going with a socialist slash communist regime that we’re seeing with the Democrat party,” Jenner said.

But former Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell of Miami-Dade County believes the Governor’s recent push to tough the state’s immigration laws will not work in his favor. And that neither DeSantis nor Trump will enact laws Latinos care about.

“One of our top concerns, of course, it’s the economy and making sure that we can provide opportunities for our families, but it’s also safety and what we want our leaders that are going to put the safety of our children above anything else,” Murcarsel-Powell said.

Recent history suggests the Florida GOP has the advantage with the Latino vote. Nevertheless, there are 75 weeks until voters go to the polls, so plenty can change within that time.