A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Florida Republican Maria Elvira Salazar says she does not regret telling President Trump that he's, quote, "gone too far" on immigration. She ran a TV ad last month warning Trump that his policies were driving Latino voters away. Salazar talked to NPR at a Miami event on Thursday and described a conversation with Trump after the ad ran.
MARIA ELVIRA SALAZAR: And I told him, you know what I'm telling you is what my people are feeling. But, you know, this is democracy, where we tell the boss, hey, this is what's happening on my neck of the woods.
MARTÍNEZ: Salazar was speaking with NPR congressional correspondent Claudia Grisales, who joins us now. Claudia, Salazar flipped this south Florida district in 2020. She's been there for three terms now. But what are you hearing from voters now?
CLAUDIA GRISALES, BYLINE: Yes. Good morning, A. So this district is more than 70% Latino, and what I heard was a lot of worries about cost of living and immigration. And I heard it a lot when I visited Maximo Gomez Park in Little Havana, known as Domino Park. It's a cultural destination where Cuban Americans play dominoes for hours. But this was not a typical day. There was an unrelated arrest by Miami police of one of the players in the middle of a game, and this sparked a political debate for the other players who were worried it was immigration related.
MARTÍNEZ: What do they talk about?
GRISALES: Well, they started debating Trump's policies. Take a listen to this debate between domino players in Spanish.
ALEJANDRO TORRES: (Speaking Spanish).
RICARDO CARRACEDO: (Speaking Spanish).
TORRES: (Speaking Spanish).
CARRACEDO: (Speaking Spanish).
GRISALES: That's Republican voter Alejandro Torres (ph) and Democratic voter Ricardo Carracedo (ph) debating who's to blame for the rising cost of living. Torres argued that Americans need to sacrifice now to pay for the mess that President Biden left behind. But Carracedo said it was Trump's policies on the war, immigration and tariffs fueling the spikes. In the past, Republicans' messaging on socialism had a powerful impact, but now that message has lost some of its potency as a result of these bigger concerns.
MARTÍNEZ: So I'm wondering - because Cuban Americans have been really some of President Trump's most solid supporters - if they are divided, I mean, does that signal larger problems among Latino voters?
GRISALES: Yes. And that's why Democrats see an opening here. But Salazar's challenger, Eliott Rodriguez, knows Democrats have a big tide to turn.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ELIOTT RODRIGUEZ: One of the biggest mistakes that Democrats have made in Florida is to think that Florida is unwinnable, but I beg to differ.
MARTÍNEZ: So is that district in play for Democrats?
GRISALES: Well, polls are shifting in that direction. I talked to Eduardo Gamarra, a politics professor at Florida International University, about this. He said Republicans have structural advantages here despite the headwinds. So if they win...
EDUARDO GAMARRA: They're not going to win on the issues. They're going to win on turnout. The enthusiasm is on the Democrats' side, but Republicans have a machinery.
MARTÍNEZ: So how much of this is just maybe about south Florida versus maybe a larger issue with Republicans and Latino voters? Because I just came back from Texas, and I'm hearing a lot of the same things you are.
GRISALES: Yes. It could signal a bigger warning, actually, for Republicans. Take the 2024 election, when Trump made new ground with Latino voters and won a second term. He shaved down Democrats' margin with Latino voters to just three points, down from 25 points four years earlier. So Latinos were crucial for Trump and Republicans that year, and polling firm Equis Research has found that if the elections for Congress were held today, voters would pick the Democratic candidate over the Republican by a margin of 57 to 31. So Latino voters could be on track to shape control of Congress in what could be a close election this year.
MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR's Claudia Grisales. Thanks a lot.
GRISALES: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "OTRA NOCHE EN MIAMI")
BAD BUNNY: (Singing in Spanish). Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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