Cuban Americans to the GOP: Squeeze Havana, Spare the Families

Written By B.J. Dichter, Posted on October 29, 2026

Featured photo: Miami’s Freedom Tower, where Cuban exiles were welcomed in the 1960s. Radomianin, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Cuban Americans in Miami-Dade are telling the Republican Party two things at once, and the party should hear both. They want the communist regime in Havana squeezed until it breaks. And they do not want their cousins who fled it sent back.

That is the message of the 2026 FIU Cuba Poll, released Tuesday by Florida International University’s Institute for Cuban Studies and Steven J. Green School. The poll has tracked Cuban American opinion since 1991. This year it surveyed 1,004 Cuban American adults in Miami-Dade County from Sept. 4 to 29, with a maximum margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

The base is holding

Sixty-eight percent plan to vote Republican in November, which ties the all-time high FIU recorded in 2024. Republicans make up 53% of registered Cuban American voters, against 27% independents and 18% Democrats. In the U.S. Senate race, Sen. Ashley Moody leads Democrat Angie Nixon 51% to 26% among respondents who named a choice, although FIU says 44% of the full sample was still undecided. In the governor’s race, Rep. Byron Donalds leads Democrat David Jolly 60% to 24%. Looking to 2028, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is the runaway favorite for the Republican nomination at 58%, far ahead of Vice President J.D. Vance at 8% and Gov. Ron DeSantis at 7%.

That loyalty has survived real disappointment. Half of Republican voters in the poll are unhappy with the administration’s handling of the economy, according to lead investigator Guillermo J. Grenier. Yet they have not gone anywhere.

Maximum pressure, by a wide margin

On the regime, this community is not wavering. Seventy-seven percent favor maximum pressure on the Cuban government. Sixty-five percent back the blockade of oil imports, and 69% believe maximum pressure will bring regime change. Seventy-three percent support U.S. military action to overthrow the government, including 87% of Republicans and 68% of independents. Asked what kind, 43% chose a clandestine operation, 28% strikes on selected military targets and 14% a land invasion.

They also want any deal to end the dictatorship, not prop it up. Two-thirds would ease sanctions in exchange for a free-market economy within two years, but 80% reject any deal that leaves the current government in power for economic reforms alone. That should settle any talk in Washington of a Vietnam-style bargain with the Castro heirs. TNT covered the administration’s sharper rhetoric, Rubio’s “now is the time” message and the CIA’s offer to Cubans, on Oct. 25. This poll shows the exile community is with him.

Pressure on the regime does not mean punishing the people. Seventy-three percent favor letting companies sell medicine to Cuba without restriction, 70% say the same for food, and 74% want U.S. aid directed to Cuba’s private sector. A majority of Republicans agree: 62% on medicine and 64% on private-sector aid.

Where the GOP should listen

Then comes immigration. Seventy-six percent disapprove of the administration’s increased deportations of Cubans who lack legal status but have no criminal record, including 63% of Republicans. Eighty-seven percent want the government to resume processing immigration benefits for Cubans already here, with Republicans (86%), Democrats (90%) and independents (86%) all agreeing.

This is not a contradiction. Cuban Americans know better than anyone what the regime is, because many of them escaped it. A man who fled Castro’s police and has worked, paid taxes and kept out of trouble in Hialeah is not the problem border enforcement is meant to solve. Deporting him to a dictatorship the administration is trying to topple sends a mixed message to the people most likely to rebuild a free Cuba.

The Republican Party built its Miami majority on anti-communism, and the 2026 poll shows that majority is still there. Keep the pressure on Havana. Go after criminals and cartels without apology. But restart the immigration paperwork for law-abiding Cubans and stop treating refugees from communism like everyone else in line. The voters who gave the GOP 68% are asking for both. They have earned a hearing.

B.J. Dichter

B.J. Dichter is a contributor to The National Telegraph and the producer and creator of Not On Record, a weekly podcast on politics and culture. He produces Open College with philosopher Stephen Hicks and hosts Coffee with BJ, his live show. A former trucker, he was a spokesperson for the 2022 Freedom Convoy and wrote about it in Honking For Freedom. He writes from a classical liberal, libertarian conservative perspective on free speech, Canadian and US politics, Israel and Bitcoin.