Florida Congressman and Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Charlie Crist is under some fire on Twitter after his campaign website was discovered to display two separate sets of merchandise for his English and Spanish-speaking supporters.
While the English side of his site is riddled with Pride-themed merch, his Spanish-speaking side has not a single trans for Pride flag to be found.
Giancarlo Sopo, a media strategist, tweeted out the difference on Monday with a caption that reads, “Interesting. When you visit Charlie Crist’s campaign store, the English version prominently features Pride Month materials for sale. But the Spanish version has none.”
Interesting.
When you visit Charlie Crist's campaign store, the English version prominently features Pride Month materials for sale.
But the Spanish version has none.
See for yourselves: https://t.co/IUzqqXdfyF pic.twitter.com/V3nwSwrEdw
— Giancarlo Sopo (@GiancarloSopo) June 20, 2022
Crist has long attempted to appeal to Latinos in Florida, even meeting with leaders to discuss ways that he could help the Hispanic community.
In 2020, Crist told latinos that voting was “the most important responsibility we have as citizens — a responsibility we have to our neighbors, our friends, our children, and grandchildren.”
It also could show some insight into what has become more and more clear in recent elections: that Latinos in Florida are becoming seen as a more right-wing block that isn’t going to vote left.
Guillermo Grenier, a sociology professor at Florida International University said that Democrats’ approach to Hispanic voters has been “wrought with entitlement.”
Politico reports that he said that their entitlement was “based on the outdated idea that, because the party generally opposes Republicans’ hard-line stance on issues such as immigration, Florida’s diverse bloc of Latino voters will support them. But Republicans focus their outreach on more visceral appeals.”
“They [Latino voters] want someone who says, ‘I’ve got the balls to fight for you.’ That’s basically all [former President Donald] Trump did, and it worked,” Grenier said. “The Democratic elite think that just because they are right on the issues, they [Latino voters] will flock to them. But that’s not the way it works, and Republicans know that.”
He says recategorizing Hispanic voters as “persuadable,” and thereby changing how the party communicates to them, is a good start. But Grenier has yet to see real urgency.
“People need to start now,” he said. “The Trump organization was paying canvassers $20 an hour to go door-to-door months before the election, a year before the election. That’s a lot of money.”
