Hillary Clinton is gaining momentum from Hispanic voters in key early voting states — and it's primarily because of Donald Trump.
"She’s not an idiot like Trump," Jon-Carlos Perez, 30, a concrete skilled laborer originally from Puerto Rico, told The New York Times Saturday after casting his vote in Orlando, Fla. "I'm Puerto Rican, and I'm probably more American than he is."
In Florida, as many as 200,000 more Hispanics had voted early as of Friday than did during the full early voting period in 2012, Steve Schale, a Democratic strategist who helped run President Barack Obama’s two campaigns here, told the Times.
Twenty-four percent of those early voters were casting their choices for the first time, he said.
Overall, Hispanics account for about 16 percent of the voters on the rolls in the Sunshine State and have so far cast about 14 percent of the record 5.7 million early and absentee ballots cast in the state, Politico reports,
In 2012 at this point, 3.9 million Floridians had voted.
However, Democrats' lead of 7,280 ballots in the state pales versus their lead of about 104,000 early and absentee votes four years ago, Politico reports.
"I think it's trending well for HRC, but it's definitely a toss-up state," Schale told Politico.
Regarding the Hispanic vote, four other states with surging Latino populations — Arizona, Colorado, North Carolina and Nevada — had already cast ballots by Thursday equal to more than 50 percent of their total turnout from 2012.
The results come from Catalist, a Democratic data firm, the Times reports.
"The story of this election may be the mobilization of the Hispanic vote," South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said.
Graham lost to Trump in the Republican primary, has not endorsed the nominee and has urged the GOP to reach out to Hispanics.
"And they didn’t come out for anybody as much as they came out against what they saw as racism," he told the Times. "So, Trump deserves the award for Hispanic turnout.
"He did more to get them out than any Democrat has ever done."
Trump kicked off his campaign in June 2015 by attacking some Hispanic immigrants as rapists and drug dealers and has since — among other things — bashed an American-born federal judge because of his Mexican heritage.
In a survey of Hispanic Florida voters released on Thursday, Clinton is leading Trump by 30 points, 60 percent to 30 percent.
"These Florida numbers are not only ominous for Donald Trump — they're downright terrifying for Republicans nationwide," pollster Fernand Amandi, who conducted the research for The Washington Post and Univision, told Politico.
He called Clinton’s 30-point margin "historic."
But Trump is fighting back, making many stops throughout Florida in the days leading up to Tuesday's election and campaigning in states where Clinton's support among white voters has been slipping recently.
For instance, Trump has stopped this week in such diverse states as North Carolina, Colorado and Nevada.
He also will campaign in Minnesota, a longstanding Democratic stronghold, while polls showing Trump gaining in Michigan and Wisconsin.
In response, Clinton's campaign is sending running mate Sen. Tim Kaine to the Badger State and former rival Sen. Bernie Sanders to Iowa this weekend.
The Democrat is also working feverishly to win Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire.
"What do all those states she's going back to hold in common?" Republican strategist Karl Rove posed to the Times. "They're all older and whiter than the country."
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