FIU Cuba Poll Reveals Diminishing Support For Embargo Against Cuba

Support for the U.S. embargo against Cuba is at its lowest point in 10 years among Cuban-Americans in Miami-Dade County, reveals Florida International University's Cuba Poll 2000 released today.

At the same time, the survey shows that Cuban-Americans not only overwhelmingly support Republican George W. Bush for president but Democratic candidate Al Gore commands less than half of the support Bill Clinton garnered from the same group in 1996.

One reason may be lingering resentment over the Elian Gonzalez case: nearly 80 percent of Cuban Americans continue to believe the boy should have been allowed to remain with the Miami relatives.

The results of the 10th anniversary edition of the poll were released today during the Third Cuban Research Institute Conference on Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at FIU.

This poll, conducted throughout the months of September and October, consisted of 1,600 random interviews with residents of Miami-Dade County and 400 random individuals throughout the country.

For the first time, the poll included local non-Cuban-American respondents. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 5 percent for the local non-Cuban and national samples; +/-3 for the Cuban-American sample. Among the poll's most significant findings:

• More than 28 percent of Cuban-Americans surveyed believe that political change will never happen in the island, the highest level of pessimism ever found in the poll. Only 4 percent responded the same way in October of 1991. Conversely, 9.7 percent of Cuban-Americans sampled this year believe major political change will occur within one year, down from 47 percent in 1991.
• Thirty-three percent of the Cuban-American respondents now oppose the U.S. embargo of Cuba, that is nearly triple the number who opposed it in 1991.
• Cuban-American respondents were also more likely than ever to support sales of food and medicine to Cuba: 43.1 percent are strongly in favor of allowing medicine to be sold to Cuba, up from 28.1 percent three years ago. More than 37 percent strongly agree that food should be sold to Cuba, up from 20.3 percent in 1997.
  
• Nearly 64 percent of Cuban-Americans say they would vote for George W. Bush in November, while only 14.9 percent would vote for Al Gore. Forty-nine percent of local Non-Cubans and 35.7 percent of respondents throughout the nation indicate they would vote for Gore.

"There is often a misconception that the Cuban-American population is monolithic. The greatest contribution of this poll is that it shows the diversity of the group," said Guillermo Grenier, director of FIU's Center Labor Research and Studies and the principal investigator of the poll. "The poll indicates a steady increase in pessimism over the situation in Cuba and noticeable increase in the desire for dialogue and lifting of the embargo."

The poll was a joint effort of FIU's Center for Labor Research & Studies, the Institute for Public Opinion Research and the Cuban Research Institute. The study was funded by a grant from the Christopher Reynolds Foundation and by funds allocated by the University's Office of the President. For more information or to see the poll results in full, visit www.fiu.edu/orgs/ipor/cuba2000.