Three weeks before the midterm elections on November 3, the Cuban-American community in Miami is experiencing unprecedented political tension: they continue to support pressure against the Cuban dictatorship, but immigration raids reaching up to Little Havana and the rising cost of living are now competing with Cuba as the central concern, according to a report from EFE.
Guillermo Grenier, a professor of Sociology at Florida International University (FIU) and in charge of the Cuba Poll, summarized it clearly: "The topic of Cuba is always hot, and it will be one of the two most important issues, right behind the economy and immigration."
Grenier completely ruled out any transfer of votes towards the Democratic Party, but warned that abstention would also penalize Republicans: "Trumpism is creating immigration problems for a minority of Cubans, but for them, as Republicans, voting for a Democrat is not an option that exists here."
Las redadas migratorias en la Pequeña Habana son parte de un panorama más amplio que afecta a miles de cubanos en Estados Unidos. Sigue toda la actualidad sobre políticas, deportaciones y derechos en nuestra sección de
The support for Trump among this community reached its highest point in the history of the survey: the 2024 Cuba Poll recorded a 68% voting intention for the Republican candidate among Cuban Americans in Miami-Dade, compared to 23% for Kamala Harris, and was decisive in Trump winning the county for the first time since 1988.
Two years later, the operations of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are no longer something Cubans watch on television: they have reached the heart of Little Havana.
The electoral epicenter of this tension is Florida's Congressional District 27, which encompasses most of Miami, including Little Havana, where Republican Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar faces off against the Democrat Eliott Rodríguez, both journalists of Cuban descent. An internal poll shows them tied at 45% among likely voters in a district where 73.5% of the residents are Hispanic.
Salazar had a public clash with Trump in September when she published a video in front of the White House: "Mr. President, your immigration policies have gone too far. In July, your government detained fifty thousand people, and half of them had no criminal record." Trump responded that he supported her but disagreed, adding that "Maria won only thanks to me".
Rodríguez countered by accusing Salazar of being an "accomplice" of those same policies, and he reminded that she voted to fund immigration agents with $100 billion.
The early voting in Miami-Dade begins on Monday, October 19 at 28 locations, from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., until November 1; the deadline to request a mail-in ballot is October 22 at 5:00 p.m.
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