Florida Republicans celebrated their victories as the state's Democrats licked their wounds on Wednesday, after a bigger-than-expected turnout from Latinos in Miami helped US President Donald Trump win the sunshine state.
Mr Trump cruised to victory in Florida with some 375,000 more votes than his Democratic challenger Joe Biden, in a high-turnout election that also saw Florida Republicans flip two congressional seats and make gains in the state legislatures.
The national race remained too close to call on Wednesday. But Florida was widely viewed as a must-win battleground state for Mr Trump and its 29 electoral college votes were widely seen as necessary for the president to keep his job.
Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, celebrated a "Dem wipeout in Miami-Dade #Florida" that saw "Trump cut the Democrat margin of victory by over half from 2016," when he beat Hillary Clinton there by some 113,000 votes.
Miami Republican organisers and analysts told The National that Mr Trump benefited from deep ties to Cuban Americans, while his message of economic strength and resisting socialism resonated with other Latinos.
Julio Martinez, 77, a Cuban-American Vietnam War veteran who helps run a pro-Trump club for ex-servicemen and who mobilized Republican voters around Hialeah, a Cuban-American suburb of Miami, said Hispanics were energised ahead of polling day.
"They wanted to let the world know that we came from countries that were taken over by communism, and they didn't want that to happen in the only country they could live in," said Mr Martinez, who left Cuba with his family in the 1950s.
"They couldn't go back to their countries unless President Trump got elected. And he had promised Nicaraguans, Venezuelans and Cubans that he was going to try to fix what was going on with the communist parties in those countries."
At campaign rallies in Florida, Mr Trump warned voters that President Biden would be soft on Latin American leftist autocrats like Nicholas Maduro and Daniel Ortega, the presidents of Venezuela and Nicaragua.
Mr Martinez drove a truck around Hialeah, bearing Spanish-language slogans like "no al socialismo" that resonated with voters who feared the growing clout of Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other leftists in the Democratic party.
"They were worried about [Mr Biden's running mate] Kamala Harris. And so am I. I don't think the woman is very truthful. I think she is a left-winger. People were scared that Biden would go away very quickly and Kamala Harris would take over," said Mr Martinez.
Florida’s southern Miami-Dade county saw one of the biggest swings in Tuesday’s election. Florida Democrats know they need a good showing in Miami-Dade to offset the advantages Republicans have in the state’s conservative central and northern counties.
As of Wednesday morning, Mr Biden had only a 7.3 percentage point lead over Mr Trump in Miami-Dade. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton beat Mr Trump by some 30 points in the oceanfront county in 2016.
Eduardo Gamarra, a professor of political science at Florida International University, said Republicans had worked hard to woo Latino voters by stoking fears of Democrats taking the US in a leftist direction.
"The message may have been a lie, but the socialism accusation was absolutely effective, and the Republicans have been using it since 2017 at least," Mr Gamarra told The National.
Meanwhile, Democrats were too focused on bashing Mr Trump's hardline immigration and wall-building policies, said Mr Gamarra. Miami's Latino voters already have US citizenship, are relatively educated, wealthy and care more about the economy and healthcare.
"The Democrats have to start early, and they're already late because the Republicans have never stopped campaigning here," said Mr Gamarra. "They don't take anybody for granted. They've developed a road game which is unparalleled."
