Life is strange. When I chose the “Groundhog Day” graphic for our 2020 election posts, I did so because I was trying to capture the numbing, “here we go again” nature of the day.

I had no idea that the 2020 results — whether President Donald Trump wins or not — would end up resembling the 2016 race to this degree.

Take Florida. As you may know, everyone in cable-news land last night was talking about Florida as the point of a spear — symbolizing the surprising numbers of Hispanics voting for Trump. It turned into one of the stories of the night. This was part of a rise (small, but significant) in Trump voters in a number of different categories linked to race.

Yes, note the Latino numbers. There may be several layers to that story.

For example, if you read GetReligion, then you know that we were convinced that the rise of Latino evangelicals (and Pentecostal believers) was one of the most important stories of the 2016 race, giving Trump crucial votes that put him in the White House.

Cue the “Groundhog Day” clock. Again.

But let’s note that political-beat journalists would have noticed this trend quicker if they had paid attention, not only to GetReligion (#DUH) but to some important religion-beat reporting elsewhere. Remember that New York Times story that we praised recently? See the post with this headline, “New York Times listens to Latino evangelicals: 'Politically homeless' voters pushed toward Trump.” That post includes a flashback to my 2016 thoughts on Latino evangelicals in Florida.

If you want more input on that issue, and others, please see this new piece by Clemente Lisi: “Election 2020: 3 Things We Learned About Faith And Voting” (at Religion Unplugged). He noted a crucial fact on the Trump campaign calendar:

It’s true that Latinos in general did help Trump (for example, Cuban-Americans in Miami-Dade County), the Hispanic evangelical vote mattered, as GetReligion recently pointed out. NBC News exit polling revealed that 55% of the state’s Cuban-American vote went to Trump, while 30% of Puerto Ricans and 48% of “other Latinos” backed the president.