Trump campaign claims historic GOP turnout in Florida

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The Trump campaign on Tuesday claimed historic Republican turnout in Florida while touting their ground game—specifically their efforts in Black and Hispanic communities—and saying the race in the Sunshine State is in “nearly a dead heat.”

“We feel really, really good about where we stand in Florida,” Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien said on a call with reporters Tuesday evening.

Stepien noted that they anticipate early returns in Florida to be “largely in favor of Democrats,” but cited election night 2016, saying that the results “will become much more positive” as the votes come in.

“They will indicate the victory that we very much expect tonight,” Stepien said.

Stepien told reporters that the Trump campaign has been “aggressively courting” new members to the coalition of Trump supporters in Florida since 2016, crediting much of their success to “policy achievements of the White House.”

Stepien said the campaign has had “a lot of success in developing wider and deeper relationships” with the Cuban, Venezuelan, Colombian and Puerto Rican communities, specifically in South Florida.

“This is something the president had instructed us to do pretty early in the campaign,” senior adviser Jason Miller said.

“What we’re seeing with the Cuban-American community, Colombian-American community, Venezuelan-American community in south Florida is nothing short of spectacular,” Miller added. “There is so much energy.”

The camapign also stressed that Republicans were voting in historic numbers in Florida, citing Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio's tweet earlier in the day, and voter data. 

Stepien stressed the importance of “every vote” Tuesday, saying that the race ultimately will “come [down] to turnout.”

“We think we are better positioned in that type of campaign. We are executing the plan we’ve been building for four years,” Stepien said. “Conversely, you see the Biden campaign doing emergency trips to Philadelphia, Scranton, and Detroit—they are alarmed and concerned about turnout.”

Stepien was referring to Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s Election Day campaign stop in Pennsylvania, and the trip to Detroit, Mich. that his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris of California made. Stepien claimed that Democratic voters in key battleground states were not turning out on the scale of Republicans.

“They are doing their best to turn out voters who don’t exist,” Stepien said. “The voters they are trying to to turn out now were scared out of voting on Election Day.”

He added: “We like our plan better.”