Cuban-Americans leaning toward Trump in Florida, tipping the scale against Rubio-Fox News Latino

The early voting station at the John F. Kennedy Library in Hialeah, Florida, is supposed to be bona fide Marco Rubio territory. In 1999, voters in this working class, predominantly Cuban-American city helped propel Rubio from West Miami city commissioner to a seat in the Florida House of Representatives. And in 2010, the Hialeah’s staunch Latino Republican base formed the bedrock for a coalition of conservative voters that sent the young Cuban-American politician to the U.S. Senate.

But Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump is chipping away support in Rubio’s stronghold.

Near the entrance to the library’s parking lot, a quartet of Cuban-American men hold up Trump placards and hand out “Make America Great Again” bumper stickers to voters.

Among them is Julio Martinez, a Cuban-American Vietnam veteran who served as Hialeah’s mayor from 1991 to 1993. 

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Martinez has recruited other Cuban-Americans like Rene Santiesteban to stump for the GOP usurper. A delivery driver who came to Miami from Cuba eight years ago, Santiesteban became a U.S. citizen in 2011. He didn’t vote in the last presidential election, but this time he has cast his ballot for Trump.

“He’s a radical change from traditional politicians,” said Santiesteban, who sported a white Trump campaign T-shirt. “That’s what we need now. We need someone the world can respect.”

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Trump's appeal is not as forceful among Latinos – 19 percent, according to a recent Washington Post-Univision News poll

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...results for a Florida Atlantic University survey released this weekend show Trump with a narrow lead among Latino Republicans at 37 percent. Rubio trails Trump by 2.5 percentage points. Senator Ted Cruz, the other Cuban-American in the Republican presidential race, got 20.5 percent