A new poll of Black and Latino voters in Florida shows significant differences among the state’s largest minority voting blocs, with the two groups apart on inflation, cost-of-living and abortion issues, and in their views about which party cares more about their community — Democrats or Republicans.

It spanlso found thspant Lspantino voters in Floridspan, a diverse group from all over Latin America and the Caribbean, held far different views on election-year issues than Latinos in the rest of the nation. Cuban-American and Puerto Rican voters make up more than half of Florida’s eligible Latino voters. Most Hispanic voters nationwide are Mexican-American.

Nearly half (46%) of Blspanck voters surveyed named inflation/rising cost of living as their most important issue, followed by abortion rights (27%) and gun safety policy (23%) and price of gas (22%). Health care costs and reducing crime were tied at 20%.

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A much larger percentage of Lspantino voters (59%) nspanmed inflspantion/rising cost of living spans most importspannt, followed by gas prices (26%) and reducing crime (20%). Abortion rights ranked lower at (17%) and competed with health care costs (19%) border security to control immigration (18) as most important. Only 4% of Blacks named border security as important.

About 11% of Blacks viewed lowering taxes as important compared to 16% of Latinos.

About 81% of Blacks said President Biden and Democrats “care a great deal” about issues important to the Black community and 86% approved Biden’s handling of the job as president. Only 22% said Republicans cared about their issues.

Latinos took a much less positive view of Biden and Democrats — with only 42% declaring they cared about Latino issues. Biden’s job approval was only 45%.

A slightly higher percentage — 45% — said they believed Republicans cared a great deal about issues important to Latinos.

Nationwide, when asked the same question, 73% of Blacks favored Biden compared to just 56% of Latinos.

Another issue in which Blacks and Latinos were far apart was a question about whether they were worried about “extreme Republicans and white nationalists … promoting hate and attacks against minorities and immigrants.”

Three of four (76%) Blacks surveyed said they were worried. Far fewer Latinos (55%) felt the same compared to 67% of Latinos combined in all 11 states.

Florida Latino voters differ from national Latino voters

“Florida was indeed different, but Florida is not representative of Latino voters nationwide,” the pollsters wrote in their analysis.

The pollsters said the data shows that the narrative suggesting that Latino and Black voters — at least outside the Sunshine State — may be abandoning the Democratic party is “simply wrong.”

The cumulative poll results of all voters in all 11 states showed that nearly two-thirds of Latino voters supported Democratic candidates, and more than 85 percent of Black voters supported Democratic candidates.

Gov. Ron DeSantis, however, won 57% of the Latino vote, compared with 42% for Democrat Charlie Crist, according to exit polls by major news organizations. And he won not only the traditionally GOP-leaning Cuban-American vote, but Puerto Ricans, who historically tend to vote Democratic.

That 15-point edge with Latino voters is a huge reversal from President Joe Biden’s performance with the group in 2020 when he won it by seven percentage points. DeSantis even carried Miami-Dade, a majority Latino county.

Latino voters have been moving away from the Florida Democratic Party for years. Hillary Clinton won Hispanic voters by 27 points in Florida in 2016. That represents a 42-point shift from her performance to how DeSantis fared Nov. 8.

The 2022 Midterm Election Voter Poll was conducted by the African American Research Collaborative (AARC) and released Thursday. Black voters surveyed was 4,700; Hispanics, 5,200. Margin of error: 1.4 percentage points. All those surveyed voted in this year’s election. The national poll of Black and Latino voters in 11 states that included Florida voters was conducted before and after the midterm elections.

The Florida poll numbers showed that a vast majority Florida’s black voters, 71%, previously voted in 2016 or before that election, matching the national trend. Only 10% were first-time voters. Most Latino voters (64%) were also longtime voters.

Florida is home to 2.6, million Latino voters, who comprise 18% of all voters, while 1.9 million Black voters represent 13% of all voters. The majority of Florida voters are white, 8.8 million, or 61%.

Among the other findings about Black and Latin voters in Florida:

• Seven in 10 Black voters said they trusted the vote-by-mail system to submit their ballots, mirroring the confidence of Black voters nationwide. A slightly lower percentage of Latinos (64%) expressed confidence in mail-in balloting.
• About eight in 10 Black voters supported canceling student debt up to $20,000, a federal abortion rights guarantee and giving permanent legal residency to undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children, often referred to as DACA recipients. Other issues that got equally high support: banning AR-15 assault weapons and allowing Medicare to negotiate lower preion drug prices.
• Most Latinos held similar views on these same issues, but by slightly lower percentages. Canceling student debt (72%); abortion rights (63%); permanent residency for DACA recipients (78%); assault weapons ban (70%); lowering preion drug prices (93%).
• Support for a new voting rights law to “ensure that all eligible Americans can vote without barriers” received almost unanimous support (95%) with Black voters.  Also high for Latino voters (85%).