Miami, Florida – Florida is home to 1.9 million Cuban Americans, the largest such community in the United States. Miami-Dade County alone, at the southern tip of the Florida peninsula, is home to at least 900,000 people of Cuban descent.
For decades, the Cuban American community in South Florida has been viewed as a stronghold of the Republican Party. However, last December, a crack appeared when the city of Miami elected its first Democratic mayor in nearly 28 years.
That victory fueled speculation about a political shift in Florida, a state that has leaned conservative. But when it comes to the powerful Cuban American voting bloc, experts say no major change is on the horizon in the near term.
“The reality is that Cubans, until proven otherwise, will still support the Republican Party,” said Guillermo Grenier, a sociology professor in the Department of Global and Sociocultural Studies at Florida International University.
The August 18 primary in Florida will give this key voting group the chance to choose their party's candidates, ahead of a tense midterm election in November. It will also test the endurance of both the Republican and Democratic parties in reaching Cuban American voters, not only this cycle but in the years to come.
