Cuban-Americans and the 2020 Presidential Election: Evidence and Hypotheses from the 2020 Cuba Poll

Every four years Cuban-Americans in Miami become “los bravos de la pelicula.” Heroes of a movie running since the Cold War year with little updating. Politicians and their posses descend on South Florida talking tough about Cuba and make promises about what they will do about its deviant government. It is as if Cubans care about nothing else other than US/Cuba policy and they only care about this every four years. Cuban-Americans play their role well and predictably. After some tension about whether generational shifts or the rising new waves of immigrants will change the political calculus, the hardliners reassert their domination. The cries for a “Cuba Libre” echo off the class walls of the Versailles restaurant. The Republican Party triumphs. The Democrats say ‘it is what it is.’ The end. To be continued.

For close to thirty of those long years I have conducted the FIU Cuba Poll, usually during these periods when everyone wants to know how Cubans are going to vote. Our poll tries to understand the attitudes of Cuban-Americans about U.S./Cuba relations and other ancillary policies linking the South Florida diaspora to the motherland. The tension between supporting policies of engagement or policies of isolation is always present. The desire to see change on the island, and to…