The more cynical among us might poke fun at, and poke holes into, the idea of “the American Dream” in this era of unprecedented inequality. But the majority of Latino millennials still believe in it, according to a 2014 study contrasting Latino millennials to their non-Latino counterparts.

And much as it pains me to say it, Marco Rubio tells the American Dream – child of immigrants; working class childhood; scholarship and community college; law school; marriage and children; an imperfect but aspirational career – story better than any other presidential hopeful currently in contention.

That’s why, though I’m a lifelong Democrat, and most fellow Latino voters are too, I spend a lot of time thinking about him, worried that he would carry a great number of fellow Latino votes in a general election despite his ultra-conservative views.

I’ve heard plenty of concern expressed by Latino millennials about Rubio’s slide from his “gang of eight” comprehensive take on immigration, which argued for granting amnesty to undocumented immigrants, to his current, more stridently “enforcement-first” stance.

But immigration isn’t the only issue on which Rubio and US Latinos part ways. Rubio doesn’t believe human activity is the cause of climate change, but 66% of Latinos do (it is a matter of pride for many of them that Latin America has taken the lead in the fight against climate change). And the Affordable Health Care Act, which most US Latinos support, has been undermined by provisions Rubio slipped into a spending bill late last year.

But Rubio code-switches from English to Spanish as effortlessly as second generation Latino-Americans do. That, combined with the continuing pull of his rags-to-riches narrative, may help explain why, as the editor of a code-switching, Philadelphia-based news media organization centered on the US Latino experience, I’ve lost count of the millennial, US-born children of immigrants who tell me that they like Rubio anyway, believing that if he were elected he’d return to a more measured immigration position.

In a recent conversation with national faith leaders and immigration advocates (who asked not to be identified) I was told that Rubio is considered someone with whom advocacy organizations will be able to work fruitfully, as opposed to Ted Cruz, the other Latino Republican presidential candidate, whom they consider a lost cause where immigration is concerned.

Multiple liberal and Latino political wonks spent much of 2015 assuring readers that Rubio cannot and will not appeal to Latino voters. And plenty of Latinos agree, pointing to the difference in Cuban Americans and Mexican Americans (the largest share of the Latino population by far) and their very different paths to citizenship in the United States as a large obstacle to earning Rubio broad Latino support.

But I am not reassured, because the right story can trump a host of provable realities. I look at Rubio and understand that not only is he the choice of some of my young Latino colleagues, but if my “up by my bootstraps” father were still alive, Rubio would have been his choice as well.