A recent Pew Research survey[1] detailed the changing demographics of the US electorate between 2000 and 2018. The most striking is the growth in eligible Hispanic voters.
This group now accounts for 13% of the total electorate nearly doubling its 2000 headcount.
This may be of particular significance in so-called battleground or swing states where many US elections are decided. For example, in Arizona, Hispanic voters now make up nearly one quarter of the electorate and in Florida their numbers have almost doubled from 11% in 2000 to 20% in 2018.
However, the Hispanic electorate is not monolithic and while most tend to lean Democratic this is not true of Cuban Americans.
Former Republican presidential contenders Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz are of Cuban descent. 70% of Cuban Americans live in Florida making up half of that state’s Hispanic community and they tend to be politically active with a high voter turnout.
Why is this? The history of US relations with Cuba provides some enlightenment.
US involvement in Cuba dates back to the turn of the 20th century.
Cuba’s War of Independence from the Spanish Empire resulted in the island becoming a US protectorate for a short period and, subsequently, US business ties to the island deepened.
In the following years, Cuba was seen as a glamorous destination for adventurous, wealthy Americans.
The American mafia ran brothels and casinos giving the island its louche reputation. The rich and glamourous mingled with arty bohemians, film stars like Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner, and gangsters.
It’s an era of Cuban history still evoked nostalgically in popular culture. Ernest Hemingway lived there for many years where he wrote much of The Old Man and the Sea.
However, it was also a place of great inequality leading to social unrest and, eventually, revolution in the late 1950s.
In the years immediately following the 1959 revolution under Fidel Castro, 215,000 Cubans fled the island to the United States across the Florida Strait.
Framed by the Cold War, Cuba’s perceived allegiance to the USSR created considerable heartburn for its superpower neighbour just 90 miles to the north.
Due to Cuba’s proximity, Washington considered its socialist politics a national security threat.
As a result, the Eisenhower administration attempted to scupper the rebellion to maintain the military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista and funded counter-revolutionaries while under JFK tensions were ratcheted up considerably by the Bay of Pigs debacle and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
In an effort to undermine Castro, US administrations provided favourable immigration and residency programmes to Cuban exiles.
Following revolutions, those who flee into exile tend to be those from the defeated side. In the case of Cuba, this largely comprised of the wealthy, landed elite who had thrived under Batista and faced losses under Castro’s nationalisation plans. These conservatives fled with their money to Florida.
All in all, Cuban refugees had a different profile to other Hispanic immigrants to the United States. They had: more wealth, business and even political connections, high levels of education and staunch anti-communist views.
As the Cold War progressed the Republican Party cultivated a hard-line anti-communist image especially under the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Reagan, whom Castro described as a ‘madman, an imbecile and a bum’, accused Cuba of funding international terrorism.
This uncompromising stance appealed to the Cuban emigres in America and encouraged their alignment with the Republican Party.
Recent years have seen an evolution of the political profile of this demographic.
Second and third generation Cuban Americans have a more mellow attitude to the socialist trajectory of Cuba than that of their parents or grand-parents. More recent Cuban immigrants are drawn to the US for economic opportunities rather than being pushed from their homeland for political reasons so again are less intolerant of the regime back home.
However, it seems unlikely that 2020 will see these younger voters wrest their community from its allegiance to the Republican Party.
[1] Pew Research Center, The Changing Racial and Ethnic Composition of the US Electorate, 23 Sept. 2020, (Washington DC, Pew Research Center, 2020)
Jacqueline Fitzgibbon 
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