HIALEAH, Fla. — “Cien por ciento Republicano,” a worker on the factory floor shouted to Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart as he toured a local manufacturer of industrial, walk-in coolers and freezers.
Translated, the Amerikooler employee was telling the congressman that he is “100% Republican.” It’s a common refrain here in this mostly Cuban American, working-class city of about 240,000 in the heart of Miami-Dade County that is dotted with modest single-story homes, strip mall,s and warehouses — and dominated by Americans whose primary language is Spanish.
Part of a broader, Republican-leaning diaspora community that has proliferated throughout South Florida and spawned generations of native-born Americans since the rise of the Castro dictatorship decades ago, Cuban Americans are fervent backers of President Trump, attracted by his economic policies, stance against Cuba, and especially the perception that he is an unabashed patriot.
Cuban Americans are a critical component of the Trump coalition in this 2020 battleground, which by itself could hold the keys to his reelection.
“I love Trump,” said Nereida Queiros, 74, a Republican voter who spoke to the Washington Examiner during a “comedor” — a regular luncheon for low-income, Cuban American seniors at the Wilde Community Center in Hialeah. Comedors, particularly at Wilde, are must-visits for politicians hunting for votes in this community.
Queiros, who supervises programs for seniors at the center, has lived in the United States for 50 years but still speaks in broken, heavily accented English and required a translator for portions of this interview, conducted as Diaz-Balart, a ninth-term Republican, checked in with his constituents, seniors who gathered for lunch and conversation.
“He’s doing what he has to do for this country,” Queiros said, explaining an enthusiasm for Trump that has been unaffected by immigration and refugee policies that Americans of other Hispanic ethnicities have derided as hostile or even prejudiced. “He says straight — he [doesn’t] think political. He say what he feel.”
According to Florida exit polling from the 2016 presidential contest, Trump captured at least 54% of the Cuban-American vote, which accounted for 6% of the statewide electorate. That was not insignificant in a contest with Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton that Trump won by 1.2 percentage points, a tight margin typical for this swing state over the past two decades.
Cuban Americans are high-intensity voters — they show up, making the Republican advantage with this bloc important.
Over lunch at a Cuban pizza joint in Hialeah with Mayor Carlos Hernandez, Diaz-Balart, 57, explained that his community’s support for the GOP has shown signs of increasing under Trump. Indeed, a private Republican poll obtained by the Washington Examiner that was conducted just after the midterm elections found the president with a 61% favorable rating among Cuban Americans.
Diaz-Balart said the Democratic presidential field’s embrace of the concept of “socialism,” both the label and some policies the candidates are proposing, has hit major resistance with Cuban Americans and the much smaller South Florida community of Venezuelan Americans, who are witnessing a socialist regime destroy what was once a wealthy, thriving democracy.
Cubans equate “socialism” with the late Fidel Castro and his brother and successor, Raul, making them acutely receptive to Trump’s saber rattling that a replacing him with a Democrat would begin an inevitable slide toward Venezuela-style socialism in the United States. Trump delivering on promises to roll back Barack Obama’s move to open relations with Cuba, implementing enforcement mechanisms of the economic embargo on Havana that previous presidents avoided, has paid major political dividends.
Quietly, some Republican operatives also concede that Trump might have a leg up with Cuban American voters because he and they share an affinity for braggadocio and embellishment. So, when Trump talks tough and exaggerates, many Cuban Americans do not view him as dangerous or out of line, but in a way, one of them.
“What this community first understands is, is that there is evil in this world, because they witnessed it,” Diaz-Balart, the son of Cuban exiles, said. He added: “What they see in Trump is a guy that’s unapologetically pro-American. He does not apologize for the United States, he’s not out there saying the United States is evil.”
The Cuban-American vote in Florida solidified behind the Republican Party around the time of Ronald Reagan, who made bringing down the Soviet Union a centerpiece of his administration.
Over the years, new generations of Cuban Americans have shown signs of drifting into the Democratic camp, but a permanent shift has yet to materialize. Diaz-Balart carries with him a list of news stories from every decade dating to the 1960s that projected a split in the Cuban vote sparked by the younger generation moving Left. However, there is zero doubt that Trump is in deep trouble with non-Cuban Hispanics in Florida, enough that it could cost him the state’s 29 votes in the Electoral College.
In that poll taken after the midterm elections, Trump’s favorable ratings with Puerto Ricans, a growing segment of the Florida electorate, was just 34%. He does equally poorly with most other non-Cuban Hispanics, which is why, in a state that rarely swings to either party by more than 2 points, the president’s strength with Cuban Americans is a potential difference-maker.
“The simple math is that Trump does well with Cubans, but that’s where it ends with him,” said a veteran Republican operative with Florida ties. “Their route to victory in Florida is not to win Hispanics — but I think he’ll max out with Cubans, and he’ll have to.”
