Puerto Ricans Could Swing Florida Vote, But Will They?

Puerto Ricans Could Swing Florida Vote, But Will They?

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Puerto Ricans make up the state's second-largest Hispanic population after Cubans. But as U.S. citizens, many Puerto Ricans just don't cast their vote.

Florida International University Professor Dario Moreno called them a "huge potential vote," but they just aren't doing so.

Since 2004, the nonpartisan group Democracia USA has registered more than 44,000, many of them Puerto Rican.

Republicans have campaigned heavily and won more Hispanic votes in Florida in recent years. Meanwhile, Democrats hope the heated immigration debate taps into Puerto Ricans' identity as Hispanics and spurs them to vote.

That's already the case for 28-year-old Samaria Rodriguez, who thought voting wouldn't affect her life until she met her future husband, an illegal immigrant from Honduras.

She said she now she realizes that with the immigration issue, it does matter.
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