Thread by @JewhadiTM

Latino voters in Florida could help Republicans win in key races nyp.st/2QjmgEa via @nypost

Leandro Ruiz Fernandez spent his entire summer in 2016 as a “super-volunteer” for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in the battleground state of Florida.

He made phone calls. He registered people to vote. Anything to help get her elected.

Then 18, he had just registered to vote for the first time as a Democrat.

After Trump was elected, Fernandez said he wasn’t one of those Hillary supporters who was crying in the streets. He decided to step back, wait and watch.

Less than three months after Trump was inaugurated, Fernandez was forced to pay attention again when Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the first Cuban-American elected to Congress, who had represented his district for over 35 years, announced her retirement.

The open seat became one more battleground for Republicans desperate to hold on to their House majority.

Nearly 60% of registered voters are Latino in this district, which is sprinkled with suburban affluent communities expected to reject Republicans on Election Day.

It also boasts young voters like Cuban-born Fernandez who are college-educated (he is studying history at Florida International University) and many registered Democrats.

But this year Fernandez did something surprising. He changed sides.

“I just switched my registration to Republican the other day,” he said.

Instead of lining up to support Donna Shalala, former health and human services sec to Bill Clinton, Fernandez became inspired by her charismatic Republican rival, Maria Elvira Salazar, a seasoned television journalist, daughter of Cuban immigrants and fluent Spanish speaker.

He’s even volunteering for her campaign. “One of the things I like is she’s from the community, so she understands our culture, who we are as a people. Her policies are very moderate, understanding. You don’t see her attacking the opponents.”

“She always wants to work with everyone involved. She doesn’t outright dismiss one side. I think she’s very energetic. When I work with her campaign, I feel the energy. People are excited to be there. That’s something that I didn’t really see a lot in the Hillary campaign,”

Experts calculated Shalala would handily win this seat in a general election, but that was before her single-digit showing in the primaries. Shalala’s inability to speak Spanish and her longtime DC ZIP code have hampered her chances.

And she made the tone-deaf decision to invite Rep. Barbara Lee — known for both flattering Fidel Castro and fighting sanctions for Venezuela — to stump for her at a recent campaign event.

The Cuban-Americans and Venezuelan exiles who dominate the district worry about the Democrats’ acceptance of socialism within their party — and were unimpressed.

The Florida 26th Congressional District, a race between Republican Carlos Curbelo and Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell appears to be “very close,”

Curbelo, the son of Cuban exiles, is a two-term incumbent in a district Hillary Clinton also won by double digits.

He will hold his seat over Ecuadorian born Mucarsel-Powell if enough voters like David Acosta show up on Tuesday.

Acosta, an international-relations graduate student at Harvard, voted for Clinton in 2016 without hesitation.

“I couldn’t come around to supporting Trump at the time. A major turning point . . . was definitely with the release of the ‘Access Hollywood’ tape. I couldn’t do it,” said the 24-year-old.

When it comes to Curbelo though, he feels differently.

“I see him as quite moderate when it comes to introducing a carbon tax, for instance, which I know wouldn’t go anywhere within the Republican Party, but at least it starts the conversation . . . addressing climate change, and his legislation to ban bump stocks,” he said.

Cuban-born Mercedes Sabina, who cast her vote for independent Evan McMullin in 2016 over Clinton and Trump, is now 100 percent behind Republican Salazar.

“First of all, let’s make something clear. To me, there’s a big difference between an immigrant and an illegal,” Sabina said. “And in all fairness to everyone, you have to follow the law.”

Two Latino candidates from two Latino majority districts could help the GOP keep their House majority on Tuesday.

And, in the richest of ironies, voters who dislike Trump but are now leaning Republican could make all the difference.