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By ANTHONY MAN SOUTH FLORIDA SUN SENTINEL |FEB 14, 2020

Cindy Guerra, a former chairwoman of the Broward Republican Party, changed her party registration this week to become a Democrat.

She said she did it so she could vote for Pete Buttigieg in Florida’s March 17 Democratic presidential primary.

There are two reasons. One, Guerra is impressed with Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., who finished a close second in this week’s New Hampshire primary. “I find him very impressive. I do think he’s qualified.”

The second reason: President Donald Trump.

“Here’s the thing: I am not going to vote for Donald Trump — ever. I think Pete Buttigieg is far more qualified than Donald Trump. I think he’s far more intelligent. I think he is far more humane,” Guerra said. “We need a change.”

After three years of the Trump presidency, Guerra said it wasn’t hard to register as a Democrat. “The moment that the party supported Donald Trump, that’s when I knew that I was not part of that party.”

Still, Guerra remained a Republican through the 2016 election, but later switched her registration to no party affiliation.

Even as a Republican, she was an outspoken voice for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump in 2016. Guerra approached the Clinton campaign and appeared in TV and radio ads for her.

“I knew this was not going to work out,” she said. “I supported Hillary Clinton because there was no way I was going to support Donald Trump because I knew that everything that is happening was going to happen. I didn’t really imagine it was going to be quite as bad, but here we are.”

Guerra said she views Trump as divisive, a bigot and misogynistic. “Anyone who thinks he knows more than the generals and mocks people with disabilities and mocks war heroes, I don’t want as a leader of our country.”

The booming stock market isn’t a sufficient reason to support Trump. “It’s bigger than our 401(k)s and it’s bigger than our investments and our stocks. Like everyone else, my stocks are doing better, but sometimes we have to rise up and put our country first.”

Guerra, who lives in Broward and works in Palm Beach County, was an assistant attorney general under former Attorney General Bill McCollum.

She was vice chairwoman of the Broward Republican Party and won a contentious election for the top job in 2010 when the previous chairman, Chip LaMarca, stepped down to run for Broward County Commission.

Guerra was seen as a moderate by many, and was opposed by conservatives and the tea party wing of the party, which was a growing force in Republican politics at the time. Guerra didn’t run for re-election as party chairwoman at the end of 2010.

In 2016, she supported former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for the Republican presidential nomination, but said she could have voted for any of the party’s presidential candidates — except Trump.

“I am sorry to see that,” said George Moraitis, the current Broward Republican chairman, who was an early 2016 supporter of Trump. In a text message, Moraitis said, “President Trump has done a great job with the economy, our national security and immigration and she unfortunately fails to appreciate the president’s accomplishments.”

Richard DeNapoli succeeded Guerra as Broward Republican chairman and is now the county’s state party committeeman. He was one of the area’s earliest Trump supporters in 2016, when many other South Florida party leaders were supporting Bush or U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., for president.

DeNapoli’s response to Guerra:

“President Trump has done a wonderful job on ALL fronts,” he said Friday by email. “There’s no pleasing the elitist attitudes of the ‘Never Trumpers’ out there, and they have ZERO credibility when they refuse to acknowledge President Trump’s many accomplishments beyond his wonderful work that has made our economy great again.”

Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com or on Twitter @browardpolitics

By Samantha J. Gross, Miami Herald, January 9, 2020:

A week after President Donald Trump’s campaign stop at a mostly Hispanic Miami megachurch, Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez came to town to launch a counteroffensive stressing the “broken promises” made by Trump to Latinos when it comes to healthcare coverage.

Calling the effort Latinos Against Trump! Perez told local Democratic leaders Thursday that the Affordable Care Act — reviled by Republicans despite the millions who remain enrolled in the program to obtain their health insurance — will be a main focus in the 2020 campaign.

“As we head into this election cycle, we’re going to be talking about healthcare every single day because it’s the most important issue for so many people here in Florida and across the country,” said Perez, whose South Florida appearance fell exactly one week before Vice President Mike Pence is scheduled to headline a Latinos for Trump event in Kissimmee.

Healthcare is a top priority for voters, polls show, and is especially relevant in South Florida, where counties lead the state in total sign-ups for health insurance under the ACA, also known as Obamacare. Hialeah, for example, has the highest Obamacare enrollment in the country.

“We are here today with an Affordable Care Act that was a game changer,” Perez told the group. “It was the Democrats who did it. It was the Democrats who were able to give people a sense of relief.”

Thursday’s roundtable with leaders like state Democratic Party Chair Terrie Rizzo, state Rep. Cindy Polo, D-Miami Springs, and SEIU Local 1991 leader Martha Baker stressed the importance of Medicaid expansion while also discussing moves by the Trump administration to dismantle the ACA.

Since he took office, Trump has often spoken about repealing the ACA and imposing rigid caps on the federal government’s Medicaid spending. In 2017, Congress considered and rejected a series of proposals to do both.

The visit kicked off Perez’s tour of battleground states, where he will be meeting with voters to raise concerns over Trump’s approach to healthcare. The planned stops also include states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. 

Perez, who was appointed Labor secretary under President Barack Obama, said without Democrats’ actions on healthcare during the Obama administration, millions of Americans wouldn’t have gained coverage, especially Latinos.

Perez also criticized the Republican-led Florida Legislature, which has not expanded Medicaid access to patients in the state. A top Trump Medicaid official now heads up the state’s Agency for Health Care Administration . 

“States that expand Medicaid are states who are doing better,” Perez said. “And Florida has the fourth highest ranks of uninsured.”

Millie Herrera, a Democratic activist who suffered a heart attack in 2015, said by attacking the ACA, Republicans are “threatening me with a death sentence.” 

Herrera, 62, of Coral Gables, is one of 7 million Floridians who live with preexisting conditions. She didn’t have consistent health insurance until the ACA, which allowed people to obtain insurance without penalty for preexisting conditions. 

“Every time I had a pain, I said, ‘What am I going to do?’ ” she said. “In 2015 I was under the Affordable Care Act and I had a heart attack. I went to the hospital right away and prevented a major heart attack. My story is of the Latinos who didn’t have insurance and now they have it. … Everybody gets sick. It’s not Democrat or Republican.”

Rep. Polo, who is headed into her second legislative session Tuesday, has filed a Medicaid expansion bill for the second time. Expanding Medicaid would provide coverage to people under age 65 with income equal to or below 138% of the federal poverty level.

“It will also be the second time it doesn’t get a hearing,” she said, acknowledging the lack of power Democrats have in Tallahassee. “We say we stand for the people of our community. We say we stand for their best interest. But all we see is partisan politics and loyalty to the wrong people.”

Perez said it’s crucial that Democrats elect someone with strong standing in battleground states like Florida, because Americans “want a president who will keep their promises” on issues like healthcare but also key topics like immigration, gun issues and tax cuts for the middle class.

“All of the front-runners for the Democratic primary are exceedingly competitive in the battleground states,” he said. “We’re right on the issues that matter most. … I know we have a lot of work to do here in Florida.” 

The Miami stop represented a rarity in the 2020 presidential campaign season so far, as Florida visits from Democrats have been few and far between. Since the first Democratic debate in June 2019, just a handful of Democratic candidates have made stops in Florida, like former Vice President Joe Biden in September and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar in December.

When asked about the lack of candidate presence in Florida, Perez pointed to “a 90-day sprint” after primaries in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, which are held Feb. 3, 11, 22 and 29, respectively.

“After those first four states, you won’t be asking that question,” he said. 

Florida’s primary is March 17.

While Democrats no longer have a Latino candidate in the presidential race after former Housing Secretary Julián Castro dropped out of the race last week, Perez said the other candidates care about the issues that matter to the Latino community.

“Julián was a great champion for immigration, for quality education, for heathcare issues that resonate in Latino communities,” he said. “And so are the other candidates.”