Democrats and Haitian community leaders in South Florida are attempting to use former President Donald Trump’s words and actions against him as they pursue a late-stage effort to mobilize the region’s Haitian American voters.
“How dare he stand up and talk about decent people, Haitian people, saying that they are actually illegal, when they are not,” U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick said Wednesday evening at a Democratic campaign rally in Hallandale Beach, decrying Trump’s comments falsely denigrating Haitians living in the U.S.
“We’re actually helping this country be great again,” she added. Cherfilus-McCormick, who represents parts of Broward and Palm Beach counties, is the first Haitian American Democrat ever elected to Congress.
Among the more visible efforts:
— A “five-figure ad campaign,” announced Tuesday by the Democratic National Committee aimed at reaching Haitian voters in Florida.
— A visit by second gentleman Doug Emhoff, spouse of Vice President Kamala Harris, to the Little Haiti Cultural Complex on Thursday.
— Billboards that recently went up along Interstate 95 in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties, with a simple declaration — “Haitians for Kamala.”
Less visible efforts include phone calls and door-to-door canvassing as volunteers hope to convince Haitian-Americans to stay in, or return to, the Democratic Party.
“We have to vote like our lives and our rights depend on it,” said Bacardi Jackson, executive director of the ACLU of Florida, at an Oct. 17 forum sponsored by South Florida People of Color at the African American Research Library and Cultural Center in Fort Lauderdale.
The forum wasn’t a political event, but the subject line for emailed invitations to the session on combating anti-immigrant rhetoric was clear: “Haitians Under Attack.”
Home in South Florida
Haiti is about 700 miles southeast of Florida. It’s the closest state to the Caribbean nation and has the highest concentration of Haitians in the U.S. The World Population Review estimates about 500,000 Haitians live in Florida, 2.15% of the state’s population.
Djenane Gourgue, of the Haitian American Chamber of Commerce, estimated the Haitian population of Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties is about 350,000.
And a 2023 report from the Migration Policy Institute reports that the three South Florida counties, plus the borough of Brooklyn, N.Y., are collectively home to more than 40% of Haitian immigrants living in the U.S.
Sharon Wright Austin, a University of Florida political scientist whose research focuses on African American politics, Southern politics and urban politics, estimated about 200,000 Haitians in Florida are registered voters. The state Democratic Party has a higher estimate, 300,000.
Change in posture
Trump outraged the Haitian community, along with many others, by repeating untrue claims that Haitians legally living in Springfield, Ohio, were in the U.S. illegally, and that they were eating neighborhood dogs and cats.
“Despite being repeatedly debunked, these narratives continue to circulate, further stoking fear and division,” Tameka Bradley Hobbs, a historian, author of the award-winning “Democracy Abroad, Lynching at Home: Racial Violence in Florida,” and manager of the African American Research Library and Cultural Center.
Trump’s 2024 comments about Haitians aren’t a shock to many Haitian-Americans. While president, it was widely reported the president used a vulgarity to describe people from Haiti and African nations, though Trump and the White House later denied he applied the term to Haiti.
This year’s public comments are a remarkable turnabout.
Eight years ago, when Trump was campaigning for president for the first time, he had an entirely different posture.
He courted voters in Florida’s Haitian American community, visiting Miami’s Little Haiti community, a visit that Michael Barnett, then the Palm Beach County Republican Party chair and now a county commissioner, helped orchestrate.
Trump promised at the time he’d be Haitian Americans’ “biggest champion.”
Barnett had been working for years to attract Haitian Americans, many of whom are culturally conservative and religious, to the Republican Party. Republicans and some Democrats said those moves helped Trump and the Republicans make inroads among Haitian-American voters in 2016.
“Trump did have a pretty reasonable showing among Haitian voters,” Austin said, estimating Trump received as much as 20% of the vote in 2020. “That was a good percentage for a Republican, 20% of a Black constituency.
“Caribbeans in general have shown to be more willing to vote for Republicans than Blacks who are not of Caribbean descent,” Austin said. “A lot of voters who are Haitian, and Latinos they are more concerned about economic issues and economic prosperity. And in some cases they might be willing to overlook some of the statements that have been made.”
Austin studied different groups as part of the research for her book, “The Caribbeanization of Black Politics: Race, Group Consciousness, and Political Participation in America.”
Now, Democrats are seeking to use comments from Trump, and U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, the Republican vice presidential nominee, as a political mobilization tool, something Austin said is a good strategy.
“I think he has undone those inroads. … I don’t think he’s going to get nearly as high a percentage among Haitian voters as he did four years ago,” Austin said.
“Before, he reached out to Haitian voters. This time he’s not doing so. Not only has he not reached out, but he and JD Vance are making statements that are anti-Haitian,” she said.
Visit to Little Haiti
Emhoff, the Democratic nominee’s husband, stopped at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex in Miami’s Little Haiti on Thursday, accompanied by Cherfilus-McCormick and state Rep. Marie Woodson of Hollywood, who is also Haitian American.
He used some of the campaign’s standard points to describe Harris, and added a direct message to the Haitian community.
“She’s spent her entire life working for only one client: Us. You,” Emhoff said. “And she’s not somebody who debases your community and got up on a debate stage and just slurred the community. It’s outrageous. And so she’s going to be behind you, support your safety, support your freedom and have an opportunity that’s going to work for you and for generations to come. So vote for Kamala.”
The Little Haiti Cultural Complex, which also serves as a Miami-Dade County early voting site, is a political touchstone for candidates in South Florida, much the way Versailles Restaurant in Little Havana is a place political figures visit to court Cuban American voters.
Other efforts
On Tuesday, Jamie Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee, announced what he called a “historic” advertising campaign.
In a statement, Harrison said it shows Democrats are “meeting Haitian voters where they are to provide vital information about voting in this election.”
The advertising campaign involves print, digital and social media ads placed in local Haitian-owned and Haitian-serving publications.
Herlande Rosemond, the national Democratic Party’s deputy political director of coalitions, was more blunt than either Emhoff or Harrison.
“The Trump-Vance smear campaign has underlined how much is at stake this November not only for Haitian Americans, but for every American who was disgusted by their racist lies. Democrats stand with Haitian communities, and we are making sure they have all the information they need to exercise their rights and cast their votes in this election,” Rosemond said in a statement. “As we say, Sak Pase? Nap Vote!”
Aude Sicard, recording secretary of the Broward Democratic Party, and former president of the Haitian American Democratic Club of Broward, said the Ayisyen pou Kamala effort — Haitians for Kamala — conceived of the billboard effort before Trump’s comments about Haitians supposedly eating pets, which she termed “the insult.”
She said they cost almost $23,000.
“In 2016, Donald Trump came to Little Haiti and promised that he would champion our cause. We saw what happened. When he became president he called Haiti a (s—hole) country and nothing was done,” Sicard said.
She said many Haitians resent his falsely claiming Haitians in Ohio are eating people’s dogs and cats, and have provided an energy boost to the political effort. “We’ve always been there contributing to the fabric of the United States,” she said.
She said Haitian American Democrats are doing phone banking, canvassing and helping raise money for the Harris campaign. “She’s a candidate for all America,” Sicard said.
In Trump’s previous campaigns, Sicard said, “many people either voted for Trump or they did not vote at all.
“This time around is totally different. Not only do we have a great deal at stake, but the Haitian community understands when it comes to what it’s like to live under a dictatorship. We left Haiti,” Sicard said. “And the prospect that Donald Trump might get to the White House and become a dictator is in itself enough motivation for us not to vote for him and vote for Kamala.”
Republican response
Earlier this month, when the state Democratic Party announced its organizing campaign aimed at turning out Haitian voters in the final weeks of the election, Republicans said it wouldn’t make a difference.
“Like all Florida voters, Haitian Americans agree that the Biden/Harris economy is hurting Florida families. They also know it doesn’t have to be this way,” Evan Power, chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, said in a statement.
“We are working in our Haitian American community in a solid grassroots effort, particularly in Miami-Dade County. We share similar conservative, pro-family values that Democrats disdain. … Like all of us, Haitian Americans want to secure the American Dream for their children which will happen under a Trump/Vance administration.”
And Kevin Neal, chairman of the Palm Beach County Republican Party, said via email the organization was taking a different approach. He said the party’s get-out-the-vote efforts were “full speed ahead, but they are not focused on identity politics. We are targeting voters throughout Palm Beach County who share our conservative values, which includes the Haitian community along with so many others.”
Make any difference?
It’s unclear just how much impact the efforts will have. Florida has become much more Republican since 2012, the last time Democrats won major statewide elections in Florida for president and U.S. Senate.
And 2024 public opinion polls show consistent, though not enormous Florida leads for Trump over Harris, and U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., over his Democratic challenger, former U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell.
With both presidential campaigns concentrating on the seven battleground states seen as likely to decide the presidency, neither candidate is devoting significant time or money to the state.
Harris has been to Florida a dozen times since becoming vice president, but hasn’t been to Florida since President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid and she became the Democratic candidate.
Trump, who lives in Palm Beach and owns a golf resort in Doral, holds some events in the region, but they’ve been focused on reaching a national audience and raising money, not on specifically attempting to attract Florida voters.
Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.