Few South Florida voting blocs carry more weight than Cubans — but a new FIU poll finds striking contradictions among that group ahead of next week’s midterm elections.
Florida International University’s annual survey of South Florida Cubans confirms what many in that community have been expressing to the media for months: that they’re angry that so many Cuban migrants have been detained and deported under President Trump’s severe immigration policy.
In fact, more than three-fourths disapprove of it in the FIU poll.
Yet more than two-thirds of them say they still plan to vote Republican in the Nov. 3 congressional races.
“The Republican brand has simply become too deep a part of the Cuban voter identity here," said FIU sociology professor Guillermo Grenier, the poll's director.
"And if Democrats are ever going to change that, they’re going to have to learn to play a much longer ground game and build much stronger leadership in the community.”
READ MORE: Majority of South Florida Cubans support a U.S. military strike, poll shows
Another FIU poll out this week showed other Latino groups, nationally and even in Florida, look poised to abandon Trump and the Republicans in the midterms.
Another contradiction in the FIU Cuban poll: 77% support Trump’s campaign of maximum economic pressure on Cuba’s communist regime — while 69% say his policy should aid the economic well-being of Cubans on the island.
Other key findings:
- Cubans in South Florida are split on Trump’s economic performance (while Latinos in general, according to the other FIU poll out this week, overwhelmingly disapprove).
- On Cuba policy, the community is split over whether increased economic suffering for Cubans on the island is acceptable as part of the pressure push to oust the regime.
- Almost three-fourths support a military invasion of Cuba to dislodge the regime — but less than half say it should be some sort of clandestine operation.
- Less than half believe the Cuban regime will be out of power in five years — and almost a third believe it will never happen.
- Despite their enthusiasm for maximum economic pressure and military intervention, almost three-fourths at the same time support unrestricted medicine and food sales to Cuba.
- The same share believe Cuba’s fledgling but growing private sector should play a larger role — even though the Cuban exile leadership largely denies the existence of a private sector on the island.
- More than 60% favor maintaining the U.S. economic embargo on Cuba, but they're split on whether all Americans should be allowed unrestricted travel to the island.
