A Cuban affiliated with the Republican Party and with a history of voting for Donald Trump surprised her followers with a video on Facebook in which she announces that she has just voted Democrat, just a few days before the midterm elections on November 3.
Lisbeth Arzola Fadragas recorded this after leaving the polls and shared it with a direct message: "I just exercised my right to vote. Today, I voted Democrat. I can hardly believe it. I belong to the Republican Party. In previous years, I voted for Trump. And today, I feel proud of what I just did."
The clip garnered nearly 350,000 views in just a few hours, becoming one of the most discussed testimonies within the Cuban community on social media in the lead-up to the elections.
Lisbeth explained that her decision is not a result of a change in political identity, but rather based on specific personal reasons. "Today I voted for my family. Today I voted for my clients. Today I voted for all the people who have been victimized, who were removed and still go to work in fear because at some point the decision was made to let them in and they still do not have legal status," she stated.
The young woman, who arrived in the United States 11 years ago by crossing the border, argued that being a foreigner should not be a criterion for denying opportunities: "Every immigrant, regardless of their nationality—Cuban, Venezuelan, Mexican, Salvadoran, Haitian—if they are here doing the right thing, I feel, I believe, that they deserve a chance to get ahead."
In her written post, Lisbeth elaborated on her reasons and included sick individuals without access to health insurance among the motivations for her vote. She also drew a comparison that strongly resonated with her Cuban followers: "To me, nothing resembles communism or a dictatorship more than not accepting different points of view."
In the video, he emphasized that voting Democrat does not contradict his rejection of communism: "Being against communism and all the harm it has brought us, especially as Cubans, has nothing to do with acknowledging all the things that are done wrong."
The young woman hopes that things will have changed a bit in a month. "If not, I feel at peace with myself," she concluded.
The testimony adds to those of other Cubans who have expressed discontent with the Republican Party ahead of the midterm elections. This is the case of Wayne DeMario, a businessman from Miami-Dade who voted for Trump in 2024 and now regrets it, following the deportation of his Cuban wife, who had been in the country for nearly 25 years.
Also, Yasmany Moreno de Armas, a 32-year-old Cuban deported to the Central African Republic who supported Trump in 2024, publicly called for punishing the president at the ballot box.
The dilemma of the Cuban vote in Miami has intensified due to ICE raids in areas with high Cuban concentrations, deportations, and the issue of the I-220A immigration document, which affects between 300,000 and 550,000 Cubans who have no opportunity to regularize their status.
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