- President Barack Obama greets Cuban President Raul Castro before giving his speech at the memorial service for late South African President Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg in December 2013.
- Reuters
One of the less immediate, but potentially significant, impacts of President Barack Obama‘s decision to normalize U.S. relations with Cuba is a possible expansion of the Democratic Party.
Much in the way President Ronald Reagan helped
solidify Cuban-Americans as a reliable Republican voting bloc by taking a
hard stance against the Castro regime in the 1980s, Mr. Obama’s
softening of U.S.-Cuba relations could generate a new crop of Democratic
supporters.
To be sure, Mr. Obama’s policy changes angered many older
Cuban-Americans, who have been reliable Republican voters. But younger
Cuban-Americans are likely to largely support Mr. Obama’s moves. And
they will be increasingly significant in future elections as the number
of first- and second-generation Cuban-Americans decreases.
As a candidate in 2008, Mr. Obama was keenly aware of the political
trend that showed a change in views among Cuban-Americans, who have for
decades influenced the outcome of presidential elections because of
their concentration in the country’s largest battleground state of
Florida.
Polls and studies showed that younger generations, who have no
recollection of a Cuba led by anyone other than the Castro regime, were
far more open to easing the U.S. embargo and accessing their home
country. That’s why in 2008 Mr. Obama stood in the same Miami auditorium
where Mr. Reagan gave his famous “Cuba Si, Castro No” speech and declared his support for easing the embargo.
Mr. Reagan’s anti-Castro rhetoric during the height of the Cold War
energized Cuban-American voters who had been seeking a change on the
island since the failed Bay of Pigs invasion under President John F. Kennedy.
In 2008, Mr. Obama’s stance was seen as a risk.
While the overall number of Cuban-American voters across the country
is small, they have had a significant effect on American politics and
U.S. policy toward the island nation.
Republicans had for decades won over Florida’s Cuban-American
population with a hard-line stance on the embargo. Democratic candidates
took the same position, for fear of alienating a critical voting bloc.
But Mr. Obama determined he would never be able to out-hard line the
hard-line Republicans and banked on a future shift among Cuban-Americans
in favor of diplomatic relations with Cuba.
In both the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, Mr. Obama won Florida, receiving 51% and 50% of the vote, respectively. The Cuban vote in the state was split in 2012, with 49% supporting Mr. Obama and 47% supporting Republican candidate Mitt Romney, according to a Pew Hispanic Center analysis of exit poll data.
The percentage of Cubans identifying with the Republican Party has
fallen nationwide. Less than half, or 47%, of Cubans who are registered
to vote now identify with or lean toward the Republican Party, down from
the 64% who said the same about the GOP a decade ago, according to 2013 Pew survey data.
Mr. Obama’s gamble may yet help his party. A Florida International University poll conducted
between February and May this year found that 68% of Cubans in
Florida’s Miami-Dade County favor re-establishing diplomatic relations
with Cuba–with 90% of younger respondents “very strongly” backing the
policy shift. And 52% of the respondents opposed continuing the
embargo–with a higher percentage, 62%, of those age 18 to 29 opposed.
When announcing the policy change
from the White House on Wednesday, Mr. Obama urged Congress to lift the
embargo: “These are the steps that I can take as president to change
this policy. The embargo that’s been imposed for decades is now codified
in legislation.”
That puts U.S. Cuba policy front and center in the next presidential race and makes Congress the epicenter for a fierce debate.
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