Cuban-Americans — known for their high voter turnout rates — have for decades been the largest group of Latinos in South Florida, with more than half of the state’s 2 million Cubans living in the region. But it’s only been in the past 20 years that Cuban-Americans have started playing a big role in Democratic politics as voters under 50 — many born in the U.S. — have broken with the Republican Party and embraced more liberal views than their parents and grandparents.

That generational change was reflected in the last presidential election: In 2004, George W. Bush won 78 percent of Florida’s Cuban-American vote, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of exit polls. By 2016, Donald Trump only managed to capture just over half of that vote.

The red-to-blue evolution has its limits, however.

Pelaez points out that other Latino groups in South Florida, like Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, also favor Biden in the primary because of their family and friends’ history with socialist and authoritarian regimes — a sign of their different background and experience than Latinos in the Southwest, where Sanders had more widespread support.

“We come from countries where we’ve seen the slogan ‘Socialismo o muerte’ on the walls. We either survived socialism or have grandparents that did and have grown up with those stories,” Pelaez said. “Other Latinos don’t have that frame of reference.”

That difference was reflected in a Florida poll last week that showed Sanders trailing Biden, 48 percent to 37 percent, among Hispanic voters.

Only 18 percent of Florida Hispanics — from Cuba, Puerto Rico, or Central and South America — said they would vote for a self-described socialist, while 70 percent said they would not, according to the survey conducted for Telemundo Station Group by Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy.

More than 50 percent of Florida Hispanic voters under 50 years old said they would not vote for a socialist candidate, compared with 31 percent who said they would.

To some Florida Latinos, those numbers are proof that Biden would be a stronger rival to Trump in November — and would provide more top-of-the-ticket protection for Latino down-ballot candidates.

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“A lot of people in Florida know in order to win you have to have a more moderate standpoint. That’s been known,” said Mayra Macías, executive director of Latino Victory Project, an organization that endorsed Biden and is dedicated to electing Latinos up and down the ballot.

Macías explained that in a state like Florida, voters are thinking beyond the presidential matchup, given the history of close races for national, state and local offices. She pointed to the reelection campaigns for Democratic Reps. Debbie Mucarsel Powell and Donna Shalala, both of whom flipped their South Florida districts in 2018 from Cuban Republicans and are up against two well-known Cuban Republican opponents again. Trump took to Twitter to endorse Mucarsel Powell‘s GOP opponent, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, just hours after he launched his campaign in January.

“It’s all these candidates that would get affected … and hurt by a campaign’s inability to distinguish their brand of Democratic socialism from the socialism that many folks in Florida fled from or have a negative perception of,” Macías said.

Democrats have chronically struggled to get more Latino candidates on the ballot — the only Cuban-Americans in the Florida congressional delegation are Republican: Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Mario Díaz Balart.

It’s critical for Biden to court Latinos “who came of political consciousness post the Obama years,” Macías said. “It’s going to be extremely important for the campaign to articulate a vision for them.”

