NOT SO LONG AGO, Rudy Giuliani was the clear Republican frontrunner among Cuban-American voters in South Florida. When he would arrive in Miami, Cubans treated him like a full-fledged celebrity. “It was like Bono getting off a plane,” says Tom Eldon, a Democratic pollster in Florida. “It was like a rock-star event.” In November, Eldon’s firm conducted a survey of Florida’s GOP primary voters in tandem with Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway. Giuliani had the support of roughly 70 percent of Hispanics, the majority of whom are Cubans. “Nowhere is Giuliani’s support in Florida stronger than in South Florida, buoyed by high ratings among Hispanic Republicans,” the St. Petersburg Times reported in mid-December.
Since then, of course, Giuliani has dropped precipitously at the national level, and his best hope in today’s Florida primary appears to be a third-place finish. Among the South Florida Cubans, “he’s been just bleeding points,” says Eldon. “He’s basically in a two-way tie with John McCain.” If the polls are to be believed, Giuliani almost certainly won’t win Florida. But his relative success among Cuban Americans could be critical to the final outcome, since the Cubans who are abandoning Hizzoner seem to be trending toward McCain.
