Don’t Get Too Comfy With Biden

Maps speak volumes. And if you want to see how your neighborhood’s presidential politics has changed over the last four years, we’ve got two maps to show you.

Last month, the New York Times issued its now quadrennial interactive precinct map for the last presidential election, drilled all the way down to your precinct in and around Biscayne Times territory or anywhere else.

This time, it comes with three features: 2016 results, 2020 results and precinct percent change (from blue to red or vice versa).

Conclusion: Your BT-area precinct has probably shifted Trumpward, maybe by a lot, but it is likely still blue. In some eastern and northern beachside precincts, it has flipped to red.

What does such a map have to do with local politics? Plenty. With increasing frequency, partisanship has crept into discussions in nonpartisan local elections, with more emphasis on Democratic Party and union endorsements.

Visit the map by going to NYT.com and searching for “An Extremely Detailed Map of the 2020 Election,” and then enter your zip code, if the paywall allows. Press a button and you get two maps. You will see that BT territory looks pretty blue in 2020, but mighty red in 2016. That’s your trendline.

But first, let’s look at the map.

Trump beat Biden 51-48% statewide in 2020 versus 49-48% over Hillary Clinton in 2016. That shift was more dramatic in Miami-Dade, where Biden won by just 53% – a full 10 points below the 63% Clinton landed in 2016. That difference sank him in Florida.

Narrow it down to BT territory and precincts generally trend blue. But they’re more red than you might think – in some cases, a lot more red. In recent BT issues, for instance, this correspondent has identified Trump-voting Indian Creek Village as “a red island in a blue sea” and North Miami Beach a city whose precincts range from blue to indigo.

But it’s not quite that simple and the sea is not that blue. Beachside precincts with large affluent populations flipped red in 2020, if they weren’t red already. The 2017 tax law, pre-COVID economy, and ebullient markets and swelling portfolios surely helped. Even the Eastern Shores neighborhood of North Miami Beach – bull’s-eye for the $1.5 billion Dezer Development intracoastal project – went from 61% Clinton in 2016 to 50.3% Trump in 2020.

The reddening wasn’t universal or uniform. Miami Shores, El Portal and Biscayne Park stayed relatively steady or actually became more blue, running better than 70-75% for Biden west of US 1 with landside precincts of 60-65% for Biden toward Biscayne Bay.

Spanish-speaking areas went way red, particularly Hialeah (60-70% pro-Trump). Ironies lie in plain sight. Hialeah’s Trumpiest precincts were right around ZIP code 33012, which a few years ago led the nation with the highest level of enrollment in the Affordable Care Act, the initiative Trump tried and failed to destroy.

Neighborhoods of color usually went for Biden by margins of 80% or more, but that was down from 90% for Clinton in 2016. Trump won 13% of Black precinct votes in Miami- Dade in 2020 versus 7% in 2016. He made particular gains among Black males, nearly 20% of whom voted for him in 2020.

One of them was Republican T. Willard Fair, president of the Urban League of Miami since 1964 and a longtime champion of Black enterprise, who told the Miami Herald in November that Trump did more for Black folks than Clinton or Obama ever did. Some voters of color overlooked Trump’s erratic, authoritarian, bigoted and potentially criminal behavior for his message of economic opportunity and accomplishments in criminal justice reform.

Credit, too, the diligence of the Florida Republican Party, whose executive director, Helen Aguirre Ferré, told The Economist before the election that Republicans never gave up on their post-2016 Miami- Dade ground game, which included door-knocking, community events and banging the “socialism” drum repeatedly in ads.

She was right. Democrats quarantined while Republicans knocked on doors. That paid off.

Pro-Trump exhortations, often addressed to “Patriots!,” came via mailers from Trump, Don Junior, Eric Trump, Lara Trump, Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich, usually photographed in jut-jawed commanding authoritarian poses. Nothing, though, from Jared or Ivanka.

The messages were about belonging, presence, status, swag and triple-diamond status reminiscent of Amway.

One arrived from Gingrich on Nov. 28, a full three weeks after the election was called for Biden: “Mark, There is NO ONE fighting harder for this Country than President Donald Trump. But, the Radical Left is fighting just as hard to STEAL the White House and this election away from YOU.”

Even at this Feb. 22 writing, GOP email missives are still active, standing tall for paranoia, like this one: “The LEFT wants to silence and intimidate you, Mark.”

So the ground game is still afoot. Most of us in the great wide middle who strictly ration cable news are fed up with national elections and long for some peace and quiet.

Local politics, preferably boring and competent but all too often not, is really the thing, with water, sewer and garbage rates, and potholes and pipes. But the MAGA riot on Jan. 6 proved that national politics is no sporting matter.

Republicans performed well down here the last cycle, and Democrats narrowly lost two House seats in South Dade. If Team Blue members want to better their prospects, it pays to look alive.