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Miami-Dade Poll: Big Majority Back Cuba Engagement, But Cubans Still Split

President Obama delivering a speech during his visit to Havana in March.
WhiteHouse.gov
President Obama delivering a speech during his visit to Havana in March.

A large majority of Miami-Dade voters agree with President Obama’s decision to normalize relations with Cuba. But Miami-Dade Cubans are still divided – even if they applaud the President’s recent performance in Havana.

Those are some of the findings of a survey conducted by WLRN,BendixenandAmandi, the Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald andUnivisión23.

Six hundred Miami-Dade voters took part in the poll. About a third were born in Cuba or have Cuban ancestry.

Among all voters, almost two-thirds support re-establishing diplomatic ties with communist Cuba. But Cubans are still split: Just over half of them disagree.

Two-thirds of all Miami-Dade voters also said they agreed with President Obama’s decision to visit Cuba earlier this year. Less than half of Cuban voters called it a good idea. Still, 81 percent of those Cubans said they liked the speech Obama delivered in Havana.

Not surprisingly, a majority of Cubans oppose a Cuban consulate in Miami-Dade County – butonly a tenth of Cubans surveyed said they plan to travel to the island in the next year.

One interesting result involved the Miami-based Carnival cruise line. Despite the controversy surrounding itsrelaunchingof U.S. cruises to Cuba this month, most voters – and most Cubans – say Carnival handled it well in the end.

Copyright 2020 WLRN 91.3 FM. To see more, visit WLRN 91.3 FM.

Tim Padgett is the Americas editor for Miami NPR affiliate WLRN, covering Latin America, the Caribbean and their key relationship with South Florida. He has reported on Latin America for almost 30 years - for Newsweek as its Mexico City bureau chief from 1990 to 1996, and for Time as its Latin America bureau chief in Mexico and Miami (where he also covered Florida and the U.S. Southeast) from 1996 to 2013.