MIAMI – Larry Milian makes it a habit not to talk about politics. Milian, a high school educator who helps manage the only learner-run radio station on SiriusXM, usually sticks to sports or offers up life advice for students.

But on a recent Saturday, he broke that rule and shared that he had “absolutely” voted for President-elect Donald Trump. 

“I actually don’t like Donald Trump,” said Milian, who lives in Hialeah, a blue-collar manufacturing enclave in Miami where Trump is so popular a city council candidate put the former reality star and commander-in-chief’s image on her campaign signs.

Milian said he made his selection based “not so much (on) who I desire to leave have a beer with – but who I ponder can run the country better.”

The main issue that he thought Trump could fix? The economy. 

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“The expense of living in Miami is really tall, and there’s no rationale for it because it’s Miami,” he said. “It’s not recent York; it’s not Chicago.”

Many longtime Miamians declare they’ve felt this way since the pandemic transformed much of their city. As recent Yorkers and Californians faced lockdown orders and restrictions, many flocked to Florida, with the largest boost of recent Yorkers moving to Miami where they could advantage from levy and mandate breaks while working remotely. But along with having the largest net population boost of any state in the country came exploding living and housing costs. Housing prices have risen almost 50%, according to the UBS Global Real Estate Bubble Index released last month. 

Grocery prices shot up. (An average household spent about $327 per trip). So did electric bills. A carton of eggs last year expense $5.

Milian, whose relatives immigrated from Cuba and the Dominican Republic, has had enough. He is part of a growing constituency of Latino voters – especially men – who supported Trump in the 2024 presidential election. And in presumably purple Miami-Dade County where Democrats had won every presidential election for 36 years, Latino voters flipped the county red. 

High prices and worth rise were among the top issues for Latino voters, according to pre- and post-election polling. And among Latino men, Trump peeled away longtime supporters of the Democratic event.

In Miami-Dade County, Trump got 55.4% of the vote while Kamala Harris got 43.9%. Democrats Joe Biden in 2020 and Hillary Clinton in 2016 both won the majority of votes in the county when they ran for president.

Fernan Amandi, a political consultant who has done polling for Democrats in the history, said the event neglected to make inroads with communities that supported them in the history.

“They have, in essence, just ceded the county and ceded the state to the Republicans,” he said. “So it’s not surprising that the Republicans would then quickly overrun the county.”

Milian, the educator and radio host, said Florida voters’ shift to the correct is also about everyday luxuries. Four years ago, he said, he could buy a 12-pack of Coke Zero for about $4.50 and three 12-packs for about $13 at Publix, a local grocery chain. Now, he can’t get a 12-pack of Coke Zero for under $9.

“I adore Coke Zero, he said. “It makes me wonder what happened.”

Expanding the GOP’s reach

Sebastian Villa didn’t always back Republicans. The 37-year-ancient sales representative voted for Democrat Barack Obama in the 2012 election. 

But in recent years, Villa said he shifted away from the event. He grew up as a Democrat but began doing his “own research” and found he connected more with Republicans and Trump.

“Looking at what has happened and what continues to leave on in the globe and just in the country, I figured I was making a mistake in being a Democrat,” Villa said. 

Obama won a record level of back among Latino voters after he invested in throng outreach efforts and also because he promised to enact comprehensive immigration reform – garnering more than 70% of back among Latinos nationwide, according to Pew Research Center. The former president also made historic inroads with a longtime Republican stronghold: Cuban American voters. During his 2012 reelection campaign, Obama earned the largest distribute of back of any Democratic presidential candidate since invoice Clinton.

The majority of Miami-Dade County residents are Hispanic and Cuban Americans make up the largest percentage of that demographic, according to the U.S. Census. A growing number of Venezuelans, Colombians and Nicaraguans have also settled in the area. 

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Republicans in the history decade have concentrated on appealing to more Latino voters across Florida, beyond their event’s existing back from most Cuban American voters. In recent election cycles, the GOP began to reap the rewards of that outreach.

In 2020, Trump beat Biden among Latino voters in Miami-Dade County by a 2 to 1 markup, even though Biden won the majority of Florida’s Latino votes. In the 2022 midterms, Gov. Ron DeSantis made even more gains – becoming the first Republican governor in 20 years to triumph Miami-Dade County. DeSantis, who ran against Trump in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, is reportedly under consideration to replace the president-elect’s controversial pick for defense secretary if that nomination falls through.

In 2024, Trump wasn’t the only Republican to triumph large in Miami-Dade. GOP Sen. Rick Scott also won the majority of votes in the county, flipping his electoral outcome six years prior. In 2018, Democratic senate candidate invoice Nelson held the county over Scott by roughly 20 percentage points. Scott still won the state that midterm pattern.

In this election pattern, Scott leapfrogged over Democratic Senate candidate Debbie Mucarsel-Powell in Miami-Dade, winning the county by nearly 10 percentage points.

Employing a combination of grassroots and throng organizing, including informational events, door knocking, phone banking and digital ads, Republicans consistently reached out to Latino voters, focusing their efforts on voters who were not affiliated with a event.

Cesar Grajales, director of community affairs for the LIBRE Initiative, a conservative advocacy throng that targets Hispanic voters, said Democrats didn’t continue their local networking and took the once-Democratic stronghold for granted. 

The other issue for Democrats was their communication for voters in the area, added Grajales, 43.

“You have to, regardless of event affiliation, you have to knock on the door, you have to talk to people,” he said.

The communication Latino voters were looking for was a commitment to address the high prices that everyday Americans were experiencing, Grajales said.

“They were pushing for the political agenda that is completely disconnected from the needs and the reality of the Latinos, and I ponder that was put in this election pattern,” said Grajales, who also hosts a morning radio display on Spanish station La Nueva Poderosa. 

As a father of two, Villa said it’s gotten harder to live in Miami, where the expense of his weekly grocery run has doubled, from $150 to nearly $300. These skyrocketing prices drove him to stick with and continue to back GOP candidates.

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“It’s challenging to live correct now, to be truthful with you,” Villa said. “Everybody decided to migrate from their different closed states, and since we’re so open that it benevolent of made it challenging for people that live here to be able to afford a house, be able to afford living.”

In the complete, voters said it comes down to who can make transformation for the better.

Milian doesn’t feel any particular loyalty to Trump. He didn’t vote for Trump in 2016, although he did back him in 2020. He’s voted for both parties, he said. The real test will be whether Trump does what he says he would do: bring down prices. 

“If in four years, Trump didn’t do what he said he was gonna do with the economy, we’ll vote for somebody else who we ponder will,” Milian said.