Will Obama's Citizenship Push Help Tilt Florida In 2016?

The Obama administration on Thursday launched an effort to help 8.8 million legal permanent residents become citizens, and don't be surprised if they try extra hard to assist 830,000 eligible Floridians who could become voters by November 2016.

On the same day, the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics reported that 64,000 U.S. citizens left the economically depressed island for the mainland in 2014, up from 49,000 a year earlier.

Together, these two still-emerging forces could have important political implications — both for the 2016 presidential election in Florida, an absolute must-win state for the GOP, and for the shape of congressional districts.

With former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio vying for the Republican nomination, the party could have something of a home-field advantage. Also, the controversial Iran nuclear deal could cut into the Democrats' wide edge among Jewish voters.

But population shifts and a citizenship push could help to overcome those advantages in a state where President Obama won 50.0% to 49.1% in 2012, edging Mitt Romney by 73,000 votes.

Official statistics provide only the makeup of the overall U.S. population of legal permanent residents (LPRs) eligible to naturalize, of whom 2.7 million, or 30%, are from Mexico. There are sizable contingents in the U.S. from the Dominican Republic (300,000), Haiti (160,000) and Jamaica (160,000).

There also are 290,000 Cubans in the U.S. eligible to become citizens, with a significant share likely in Florida, but the GOP advantage among voters in Florida's Cuban-American community has narrowed sharply over the past decade.

Read the rest of this IBD op-ed HERE.

If you like what you see, please "Like" us on Facebook either here or here. Please follow us on Twitter here.