President Barack Obama's announcement that full diplomatic relations with Cuba would be restored appears not to present major political risks for Democrats in Florida or nationally, according to
Politico.
Florida, especially, is a potential swing state where a few thousand votes can decide an election, but many lawmakers there were muted in their response.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Democratic National Committee chairwoman and an embargo supporter, for instance, reacted to Obama's announcement with an inoffensive statement.
Wasserman Schultz noted that while she has "always opposed" giving Havana "unearned changes," she pledged to work with the White House "to support policies that benefit the Cuban people and do not further entrench the Castro regime," Politico reported.
Demographics in the Sunshine State are changing so that vehement opposition by older Cuban-Americans — who will vote on this issue — is likely to be offset by support from younger members of the community, more recent Cuban arrivals, and from the larger multidimensional Hispanic community.
Florida International University professor Guillermo Grenier told Politico that while there will be some pushback, the 350,000 Cubans who came to the U.S. since 1995 "want to travel back and have remittances. They want to interact with their relatives."
Obama won the Cuban-American vote by 2 points against Mitt Romney, according to a 2012 exit poll. He carried the under 45 demographic by 26 points, while ceding the older crowd by 29 points, according to Politico.
Moreover, a recent
Atlantic Council survey showed that a majority of Americans, 56 percent, and an even bigger majority of Floridians, 63 percent, support diplomatic relations with Cuba. The poll further found that 60 percent of those of Hispanic heritage favored normalization.
"Each day that passes, the proportion of the Hispanic electorate that comes from embargo-era Cubans shrinks, and they are now vastly outnumbered by an explosion of new Puerto Rican voters," said Florida Democratic strategist Steve Schale.
"Moreover, the grandchildren and now great-grandchildren of those embargo-era Cubans have a more open view toward the Cuban question,"
The New York Times reported.
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