Eugene Robinson talks battle for Hispanic vote and floats Florida as a vote-by-mail model for the nation

Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson says other states should model their vote-by-mail systems on Florida’s as he discussed his takeaways from the 2020 election with the Forum Club of the Palm Beaches.

Robinson, a 40-year Washington Post veteran who also serves as an MSNBC contributor, spoke at a virtual event hosted by the organization Monday. Among Robinson’s other major takeaways was his assessment that America may be undergoing another major political alignment. He also singled out the Hispanic vote as a major battleground for both parties going forward.

Robinson began the talk spotlighting record voter turnout seen throughout the country. He noted the COVID-19 pandemic likely drove voters to utilize mail-in ballots more frequently, but noted the pattern could stick even once the pandemic fades.

“I wonder if that’s not going to become a more permanent part of the way we do elections in this country,” Robinson said.

“Hopefully we’ll get a little bit better at it. Hopefully more states will be able to do what Florida was able to do, which is count those ballots before (Election Day) so we don’t have this long period of waiting as those finally get counted after the election.”

Florida has embraced no-excuse mail-in voting, and in 2019 the Republican Legislature approved rules allowing mail-in ballots to be counted before Election Day. Some other states’ laws block those ballots from being counted until Election Day, and those rules have been blamed for the delay in some of the final vote tallies being reported elsewhere in the country.

Robinson reflected about that high turnout and how it made him reconsider his own assumption that increased voter participation tends to help Democratic candidates.

“That’s part of the fundamental strategy that the two parties have had over most of my adult life,” Robinson said.

“In fact, former President Barack Obama once told me that he saw that as the fundamental fault line in American politics — participation. That’s key to the core thinking of the Democratic Party. But in this election, we had the biggest turnout ever. And that was bad for President [Donald] Trump clearly, but it was pretty good for Republicans down the ticket.”

While Trump lost the presidential race, Republicans overperformed in the U.S. Senate and ate into Democrats’ advantage in the U.S. House, in part by ousting two incumbent Democrats in Miami-Dade County.

Republicans also performed well in legislative races across Florida this cycle.

That disconnect between the presidential contest and other races wasn’t the only oddity of 2020. While Republicans cleaned up statewide in Florida, voters also approved a path to a $15 per hour minimum wage — a move vehemently opposed by Republicans and largely supported by Democrats. And while Republicans wildly overperformed in Miami-Dade County, voters also elected Danielle Levine Cava as County Mayor, who ran as a progressive option in the non-partisan contest.

Robinson argued voters are seeing signs of a possible political realignment in the country.

“We have in our heads this sort of linear scale of left to right. You put the Democratic Party and a certain set of policies and ideas on the left, and the Republican Party and a certain set of policies and ideas on the right,” Robinson explained.

“That’s the way I always was taught to think about politics. And I just think it’s not the right way to think about politics anymore. I think that’s an outmoded axis. I think that’s not the way people really line up right now.”

He said cracking the code would be key to having a unified federal government for the first time since 2010.

“The party that gets there is going to be the party that first begins to understand where the new political axis is and how people really are thinking politically now. And frankly, I just don’t think anybody quite gets it.”

One constituency may be key to each party’s quest for control: Hispanics. Robinson contrasted Hispanic voting patterns this cycle with those of Black Americans.

“Approximately 87% of the African American vote, according to exit polls, went to Joe Biden. No other group was as unified as a bloc as African Americans,” Robinson said.

“Hispanic Americans are certainly not a monolith of any kind.”

That was clear in Florida, but Robinson also pointed to data showing the same in other states.

“Florida is kind of a special case. Cuban Americans have had a longer and deeper relationship with the Republican Party,” Robinson noted.

“But even when you look at Hispanic voters in Texas, in Arizona, in Nevada, you don’t see them voting all in the same direction in the same way.”

Much has been made about Republicans’ impending demographic time bomb, where a growing minority population — typically more amenable to Democrats — would eventually doom Republicans to a permanent minority party. This year’s results showed that narrative appears to be false.

“Hispanics are the biggest minority in the country — and a fast-growing minority — and are up for grabs, essentially, for the two parties,” Robinson argued.

“Both, I think, are going to have to do their best to convince Hispanic Americans of their vision for the future and that’s going to be one of the most-pitted contests in our politics, I think, over the next few elections.”