MIAMI – At the heart of Little Havana neighborhood here, is Máximo Gómez Park, also known as Domino Park. Cuban Americans play games of dominos here to escape the pressures of daily life.
But what started as a typical day at the park last week took a turn: Miami police arrested a player in the middle of a game after a dispute with a city worker. It spurred other players to worry about deportations, setting off a broader political debate over whether President Trump or former President Biden was responsible for a higher cost of living.
"It's Biden," said Alejandro Torres, a Republican voter.
"It's Trump," responded Ricardo Carracedo, who plans to vote for Democrats in the midterm elections.
This same divide is playing out across Florida's 27th Congressional District, a Miami-Dade County seat that is more than 70% Latino. It is a warning for Republicans, whose 2024 wins relied heavily on this crucial electorate.
That year, Trump cut Democrats' margin with Latino voters nationally to just three points – down from 25 points four years earlier, according to Pew Research Center. Cuban Americans, the district's largest Latino group, have been reliable Trump supporters. But many of their friends and relatives have been swept up by the administration's deportation agenda. A crack among them could signal broader trouble for Latino support for Republican candidates.
Rep. María Elvira Salazar, a Cuban-American Republican in her third term, has been sounding the alarm. Last month, Salazar filmed a television ad in front of the White House warning President Trump that he's "gone too far" on immigration.
"The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today," she said.
Trump hit back at Salazar after the ad. On his TruthSocial account, he shared a post in which another user called her a "back stabber."
Salazar told NPR she didn't see the comments as attacks, saying she later spoke to the president.
"I told him, 'You know, what I'm telling you is what my people are feeling,'" she said. "This is Democracy where we tell the boss, 'hey, this is what's happening in my neck of the woods.' And that's exactly what I did."
Salazar's read of the effect of Trump's policies may be right. Polling firm Equis Research found in a recent survey of registered voters who identify as Hispanic or Latino that if the election for Congress were held today, voters would pick the Democratic candidate over the Republican candidate by a margin of 57 to 31.
At a Salazar campaign event this past Thursday, friends Mirla Loredo and Ramona Tunon were divided on whether they sided with her take or Trump's.
"Him, I tell you," Loredo said in Spanish.
"I like her position," Tunon said.
Salazar has pushed against aggressive immigration policies in the past. For several years, she has proposed legislation she called the Dignity Act to block deportations of immigrants considered pillars of their community – such as hospitality, construction and farm workers.
Still, Carracedo, the Democratic voter from Domino Park, said he'll vote a straight blue ticket. He said Salazar's recent push against Trump's aggressive deportations is too little, too late.
"I'm not going to vote for her, because at the last hour she's defending Hispanics. But the entire time she supported Trump and the money Trump wanted for ICE," or Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he said in his native Spanish.
Trump, he said, reminds him of the communist leaders he left behind in Cuba.
In the past, Republicans' messaging on socialism had a powerful impact on this district. But now that message has lost some of its potency, eclipsed by worries about a higher cost of living and deportations.
Eduardo Gamarra, a politics professor at Florida International University, says the local economy's malaise has eclipsed all other issues.
"It's probably the number one thing. And that cuts across all of the electorate," he said.
He said the second top issue is deportations, which have devastated some Miami businesses that have lost workers and customers.
An opening for Democrats
Salazar's Democratic challenger, Eliott Rodriguez, is a former broadcast journalist with Cuban roots like Salazar. He says he wants to revamp the immigration judge system, and restore federal food assistance after cuts that have hurt constituents.
Still, he concedes his party has a lot of ground to make up after largely walking away from Florida.
"One of the biggest mistakes that Democrats have made in Florida is to think that Florida is unwinnable. But I beg to differ."
Polls in the district have shifted more towards Democrats' direction in recent weeks, but Republicans are still favored. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report has rated the race "lean Republican."
Gamarra, the politics professor, says the GOP will need to rely on its political infrastructure to pull out a win
"They're not going to win on the issues ... They're going to win on turnout … the enthusiasm is on the Democrat side. But Republicans have a machinery."
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