This week, the first debates of the 2020 presidential election took place in Miami, Fla.

Wanting to know what attendees thought of the state of the election, as well as the Democrat party’s recent embrace of socialist policies, I headed to Miami to find out.

“Capitalism is killing hundreds, thousands of people every day"

After hours spent outside the venue on Wednesday, most attendees I interviewed were thrilled with the rise in prominence of “democratic socialism” within the party.

“I think the party was always democratic socialism. The problem is the Right continued to move more right, so the Left was considered radical,” said one attendee, while another added simply “it’s very good to have socialism.”

WATCH:

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“If all you can do in response is say ‘ahhh that's socialism,’ you’re not addressing the fact that it could actually make people’s lives better,” contended one woman.

“Capitalism is killing hundreds, thousands of people every day,” said another.

One man seemed to think socialism has not failed, saying “every country that has that socialism, you notice they’re not having problems.”

The strongest opponents of the socialist policies currently prominent in the Democrat party were those from families who’d fled it.

“I do know what socialism is because I lived [in] socialism before. And I’m here in this country to make sure that we never get socialism in this country,” said one man who left Cuba as a young man.

“Tell me where it has worked....I’m a son of immigrants from Cuba, and socialism didn’t work in Cuba. And look at Venezuela,” said another.

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What did other attendees have to say? Watch the full video to find out.

Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @cabot_phillips