The Cuban Republican Renaissance: Lessons for the Future of U.S. Politics

In 2014, Democrats had a lot to celebrate: they won Florida, the most-contested swing state of the time, twice in a row in presidential elections. Not to mention, reports suggested that one of the most conservative demographics in the nation, Cuban Americans, was shifting blue. In 2012, Obama closely tied with Mitt Romney among Cuban-American voters, and polls indicated that younger Cubans and recent immigrants tended to vote more Democratic, lowering GOP identification among the overall Cuban population with less than 47% identifying as Republican compared to 64% only a decade ago. This transition from traditional identity politics was a hopeful win for the Democratic Party. If Cuban Americans, one of the largest and most conservative voting blocs in Florida, were voting blue, the race was over: Democrats would win Florida, and if Democrats win the most notorious battleground state of the time, they could probably win any election. 

Flash-forward to 2024 and things took a drastic turn. Since his nomination in 2016, GOP President-Elect Donald Trump has received strong support among Cuban voters and his backing has grown throughout the years: 54% voted for him in 2016, 56% in 2020, and 58% in 2024. With the resurgence of Republican identity politics and conservative media, Cuban voters have overwhelmingly allied themselves with the Republican Party again, shifting Florida’s electoral map to the right. Miami-Dade County, home to 68.70% of the Cuban-American population and growing, was — until the 2024 election — a Democratic stronghold. Now, the county has officially flipped red, an expected outcome after GOP Governor Ron de Santis’s victory in 2022. 

The question is how did this all happen — how did Democrats go from making serious strides among Cuban voters to losing Miami and all prospects of winning Florida again? What changed in the ten years between 2014 and 2024 that Cuban-Americans went from leaning blue to being all-in Red? The answer may lie in a unique blend of identity politics and an onslaught of right-wing media.

It is a common assumption that Cuban Americans are “natural Republicans,” logical allies of the GOP due to their strong apprehension of any hint of Communism and Socialism coming from Cuba’s dictatorship. However, when the first wave of Cuban Americans arrived in the 1950s, this partisan identity was not a given. Many longed to return to their home island and focused on Cuba’s politics rather than the United States. There were some events, like President Kennedy’s failed invasion of Cuba, the Bay of Pigs, that began planting Cubans’ distrust of the Democratic Party, yet it was GOP investments that largely cultivated this partisan leaning. After the late 1970s, Republicans under President Reagan began undertaking initiatives to register Cuban voters and secure their support. They invested in Spanish broadcasting channels like Radio Martí and TV Martí, which spread conservative ideology, and in lobbying groups like the Cuban American National Foundation which attended to Cuban interests, and in Cuban-American candidates and campaigns, fostering political engagement. Through this strategy, Republicans became the party that attended to the Cuban-American community — the GOP built roots into the identity of a community that was still finding its footing in the US. 

Many recent factors have rekindled the early days of this “Cuban-Republican” identity. The FIU Cuba Poll tracking Florida’s Cuban-American population since 1991, reported that, for the first time in the poll’s history, nearly 76% of new arrivals in 2020 registered as Republican rather than Democrat or Independent. Younger voters who were formerly leaning Democrat backed Trump by 59% in 2020. A possible explanation for this trend could be identity politics – the way political affiliations and beliefs are shaped or reinforced by an individual’s identification with certain cultural, historic and social groups. In the case of Cuban-Americans, their history with the Republican Party has cemented a strong partisan identity in the community that was re-surfaced under Trump. Unlike other Latino groups, the unique immigration status of Cuban Americans makes them largely indifferent to Trump’s harsh anti-immigration campaign. As most arrived under the Wet Foot, Dry Foot policy which expedited permanent resident status and citizenship to all Cubans who arrived on U.S. soil, Cuban Americans experienced a vastly different immigration process than other Latin-American communities. Without Latino solidarity, Cuban exceptionalism allows MAGA-era Republicans to make significant inroads. 

The Trump campaign and other leaders like Ron DeSantis have made efforts to win over the Cuban-American community by playing into their historically Republican-leaning identity.  Relying on anti-communist rhetoric, they specifically reached out to Cuban voters with Trump’s campaign, for example, emphasizing his tough record on Cuba and Venezuela. Through this exile ideology, the Republican party is able to strongly ignite nationalist sentiments among conservative Cuban-Americans in a way that Democrats under Obama’s looser Cuban policies were not able to do. Therefore, if, under Obama’s leadership, conservative Cuban-Americans had been less vocal, the Trump Era has allowed them to become a central voice of the Cuban community again.  

In closed communities like that of Miami and others in Southern Florida, this focal ideology trickles down to younger generations and recent immigrants. These populations especially, those who don’t have much prior experience with American politics, may follow their community’s ideology as a means of adapting or even information shortcutting. The partisan identity they observe from their family, friends, and community leaders is further reinforced and bolstered through social media. 

Social media is another predominant source of political information for younger voters and new arrivals. The FIU 2022 Cuba Poll found that 54% of Cubans aged 18-39, 47% of migrants arriving 2015-2022 and 50% from 1996-2015 get their information on Cuba from social media.  Similarly, 58% of those 18-39 were influenced by or could name a social media influencer concerning their political views. The same goes for 44% of arrivals 2015-2022 and 58% 1995-2014. In both samples, younger Cubans and recent migrants were the largest groups that identified social media as an information source for their political views. Perhaps because they are still learning how to process and critically consume U.S. media, their reliance on social media makes these groups susceptible to disinformation and certain messaging. 

Compared to English, Spanish-language media is barely monitored by social media platforms. In most mediums, there is almost no oversight or fact-checking regarding the Spanish context, making it easier to spread misinformation among Latino voters. Moreover, the types of media sources Latinos prefer make it even harder to monitor the content they consume for disinformation. Studies found that Latinos in the United States, both bilingual and mostly Spanish speaking, preferred YouTube for political news far more than Non-Hispanic White people, leaning more towards local channels not necessarily affiliated with brand-name media outlets. The same is true on WhatsApp, which is used by the majority of Hispanic adults in the US–54% compared to only 31% of Black adults and 20% of White adults. Whatsapp, with its encryption and lack of fact-checking features is one of the leading platforms for inaccurate information about politics. The combination of these platforms and the lack of monitoring for Spanish content overall opens the gates for misinformation to spread widely among Latino voters, as is the case with right-wing messaging in the Cuban community.

Cuban social media influencers like Alexander Otoala have greatly contributed to the rise of conservative ideology. Otoala’s YouTube channel, “Ota-Ola!” features fierce right-wing messaging, often crossing the boundaries into disinformation. He’s told his viewers that Obama and Doctor Anthony Fauci were seen together in a Wuhan lab, that Kamala Harris is a Marxist and that Georgia’s drop boxes were interfered with in the 2020 election. This kind of disinformation packaged with appealing content that directly speaks to the Cuban community has generated extremely effective right-wing messaging for younger voters and new immigrants. Some of this influence can be observed in the 2022 FIU Cuba Poll where 53% of Cubans aged 18-39 strongly opposed President Biden’s overall performance and 26% of migrants 2015-2022  and 61% 1995-2014. Similar trends can be observed for specific issues like Biden’s handling of the economy, COVID-19, and foreign policy, where migrants from 2015-2022 seem to hold the most favorable views towards President Biden. Still, this cohort remains largely Republican: being the largest group indicating they would vote for Governor Ron DeSantis in the 2022 election (82%).  The strength of partisan identity among these two demographics hints at the power of social media in shaping voter’s preferences. 

As a result, the resurgence of identity politics mixed with the rise of political information in social media has transformed the Cuban electorate from a possible Democratic target to a fiercely loyal Republican base for years to come. This shift has made Florida increasingly unattainable for Democrats, turning the state from a competitive battleground into a Republican stronghold. While many other factors likely influenced the islander community’s rightward slide, this story is far from a Cuban anomaly. The political views of young voters and even newly arrived immigrants took the nation by surprise last election, hinting at the impact of identity politics and social media in shaping the broader political views of voters in this new era. As politicians continue to leverage these tools to gain political support, the case of the Cuban voter could be a tell-tale sign of incoming trends in American politics — with the last 10 years exemplifying how quickly electoral patterns can shift and reshape the seemingly predictable political system. 

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