My Cuban family fled a dictator. Now I’m scared they’ll elect Trump

Democrats are finding it increasingly difficult to connect with Latino voters — especially Cubans, who associate left-wing politics with the communism that tore their country apart. Jesus Maria Alvarez reports on the deep rifts within his community in the battleground state of Florida

The Mad Dog PAC billboard truck makes its way round Little Havana (Jesus Alvarez)

On June 17^th of this year, a billboard appeared along the Palmetto Expressway, near Northwest 67th Avenue in Miami, Florida. The gigantic sign showed an image of Donald Trump juxtaposed with an image of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, with the caption “No to dictators — No to Trump” written in Spanish across it.

The billboard was intended to run for two weeks, but was taken down after just seven days. LAMAR, the billboard company, agreed to remove the sign after a pressure campaign from local right-wing media, Republican political operatives and elected officials, including US Representative Maria Elvira Salazar, a Cuban American Congresswoman from Florida who is an ardent Trump supporter. Salazar spoke publicly about personally lobbying LAMAR to take the billboard down, calling it "profoundly irresponsible and dishonest". In a statement, she cited the "pain and suffering of the exile Cuban community" who had lived under Castro’s regime as her main reason for wanting to remove it.

Yet, not everyone was offended by the dictator comparison. Many Latino Democrats applauded the message. “Truth in advertising,” commented one member of a popular Democratic Latino group on social media.

A mobile version of the “dictator” billboard — a box truck with the same message – was already driving around the streets of Miami, including Little Havana, by the time the original was taken down. The truck made a courtesy stop in front of Congresswoman Salazar’s office.

As a Cuban American registered Democrat — a rare thing in my family — I was interested to know whether the rolling billboard would make its way past the homes of my relatives who live in Miami. Most of them came to the US in the late Sixties and early Seventies, their current political choices shaped by what many Cubans believe was the betrayal by Democratic President John F. Kennedy during the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. Most in my family, and in the Cuban community at large, have never forgiven President Kennedy, or the Democrats. In my family, simply defending anything the Democrats have done can end a relationship. After I pointed out what I saw as the benefits of Obamacare during a family call, a cousin called me a communist before hanging up. We haven’t spoken since.

These days, not bringing up such issues with other family members is the price I pay to stay connected to people I love.

A young Jesus Alvarez (left) with his parents, one month after they arrived in the US from Cuba (Jesus Alvarez)

Latino voters could determine the presidential election, still a close contest with three months to go. However, the change at the top of the Democratic ticket since President Biden decided not to seek reelection and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris appears to have scrambled the race. As the Latino population in the US continues to grow, many — particularly younger voters in the demographic — have moved towards the Republican Party. This is a concern that the Harris campaign urgently needs to address in order to increase its chance of winning this November.

“Trump himself said he would be a dictator on the first day,” Alina Rizo tells The Independent. She was two years old when she arrived in the US from Cuba with her mother. Once registered as a Republican — a common choice for Cuban Americans, whose wariness about communism has long led them to vote for the GOP — Alina told me she now votes based on the individual candidate, but is more aligned with Democratic policies.

“The dictator comparison is not only realistic, but very alarming,” she says, of the Miami billboard’s message. “It does not in any way insult Cubans, but brings awareness to the issues we face if Trump is elected.”

“I’ve made comparisons between Castro and Trump in my work for years, so I have no issue with it,” artist and author Edel Rodriguez tells me via email. A Cuban refugee who arrived in the US in 1980, he lived in Miami until 1990, when he left for college in New York City. Edel is the Author of Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey, and a celebrated TIME magazine cover artist.

“I was down in Miami when the billboard showed up in the news,” he says. “My family was mostly amused by it, and not offended… Most of those interviewed on screen [for TV news] were angry, but I didn’t see that in the community.”

“In spite of the backlash and early removal, the billboard received national and international attention that exceeded my expectations,” says Claude Taylor, founder of Mad Dog PAC, the group responsible for the ad. The political action committee, founded in 2018, is putting up "seriously effective billboards," according to their website, all over the country in an effort to defeat Trump. “We’ve done over 100 sharp-edged, anti-Trump, pro-Democratic billboards so far this year,” Taylor says, adding that that number includes “six or eight” since the Miami dictator message appeared. Many of the billboards target Latinos directly, like one that recently went up on i10 in Phoenix and also in Allentown, PA, with the message "Trump Will Deport Your Parents" in Spanish.

Trump’s admiration for Vladimir Putin, Victor Orban and Kim Jong-Un is well known. He has threatened to execute disloyal generals and rain retribution on his perceived political enemies, recently suggesting that Liz Cheney — a member of his own party who dared to criticize him — should face a televised military tribunal. He argues, with a straight face, that he should be immune from prosecution if he decides to execute his opponents, a claim the recent Supreme Court’s controversial opinion did nothing to assuage. He has joked about getting rid of the Constitution and talked about shutting down TV stations whose programming he finds objectionable. He even assured Christians at a recent event that they “won’t have to vote anymore”, since it will all be “fixed” after this election. These are all things Castro carried out against the Cuban people.

But even if I could share such observations with my relatives, the truth is that it would not convince anyone to switch sides. The pro-Trump folk I know are an immovable, fervent and powerful voting bloc.

Sixty years ago, my family was divided by political alliances and hot-button issues. The Castro dictatorship destroyed Cuba and our family was torn apart by searing political divisions. Some of my relatives joined the Revolution and still defend it, while others, like my parents, fled the island in search of liberty. It was here in America that we found it.

By all appearances, Trump needs to be elected again to stay out of jail. Members of my family, particularly in South Florida, might help this aspiring dictator achieve his goals. Only 537 votes in Florida decided the 2000 presidential election, with an assist from a conservative majority in the Supreme Court.

According to the findings of Florida International University’s 2020 Cuba Poll, Cuban Americans “consist of a miniscule percentage of the national population but dominate the demographic landscape of Miami-Dade County.” That hugely important county in the center of a swing state can decide elections. President Biden won Miami-Dade by 7% in 2020 – a whopping 22% decrease in support from the 2016 winning margin of then-Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Biden lost Florida to Trump in 2020 — by just 3.3%.

Cuban Americans, who vote at a higher rate than other Latinos, have long identified with the Republican Party. However, in the decade before the 2012 election there was a significant shift towards the Democrats, reaching 44%, while 47% considered themselves affiliated with the Republicans. According to Pew Research Center analysis, 58% of those voters moved back to the Republican column for the 2020 election, with 38% identifying as, or leaning, Democratic.

By contrast, 65% of non-Cuban Hispanic voters identify as Democratic, while 32% affiliate with the Republican Party, according to the same 2020 study.

Importantly, for the 2024 cycle, the Democrats’ lead among Hispanic adults shrunk. They held only a modest 12-point advantage over the Republicans with this group of voters in polling done by Gallup in February. Polling done by the Pew Research Center in July, before Biden dropped out the race, saw Latino voters split down the middle on Democrats versus Republicans. And the Latino Men for Kamala Harris Zoom call that was held not long after the success of other fundraising calls at the end of July ended up raising just over $70,000 — as opposed to the millions raised from Black and white-identifying American male voters.

It’s too early to tell if this trend will continue with Kamala Harris as the presumptive presidential nominee, but if it does, it could have a catastrophic effect on the party.

A few weeks after our initial conversation about his billboards, I ask Claude Taylor how he feels about Kamala Harris being atop the Democratic ticket.

“We’re so excited about Kamala! You can feel the energy and excitement,” he tells me via email, adding that his PAC is continuing to carry the message against Trump and the MAGA movement. “We just got 25 ‘Prosecutor/Felon’ billboards up in five battleground states! We are so psyched!”

The latest billboards paid for by Mad Dog PAC (Mad Dog PAC)

Rolando Barrero, the President of the Democratic Hispanic Caucus of Florida, is equally excited about Vice President Harris: “When she is elected president, she will be entering that office with significantly more national security experience than any of the four presidents prior to President Biden,” he says. “Her record as VP builds on a distinguished career as District Attorney, Attorney General, and United States Senator from the nation’s largest state.”

“There is a lot of energy and excitement around the candidacy of Kamala Harris. She will have a lot of volunteers, especially young people, who will be willing to work hard for her campaign. It might make the difference,” Edel Rodriguez tells me when answering the same question. “But I don’t vote for a person, I vote for policies. I vote for a woman’s right to choose, a free press, respecting election results, and many other things that the Republican Party does not stand for. The insurrection and attempted coup on January 6th, and the Republican Party’s embrace of it, is outrageous and shameful. Their embrace of Trump is dangerous and a symbol of their failure as a political party. I will vote for Harris and all Democrats down the line — it’s the only party that stands for the democratic process in this country at this point in the nation’s history.”

Voting is a privilege that disappeared from Cuba decades ago. In my opinion, it would be a tragedy to follow a wannabe dictator down that same path. Whether my family and other Latino voters like them can be similarly convinced, however, depends on the success of Harris’s outreach campaign.