The FL GOP's worst fear come true: Cuban-Americans in Miami swung hard to Dems in 2012

The strong swing of Cuban-American voters to President Obama and Democrats was one of the most interesting and probably one of the most significant shifts in voting patterns in 2012.

For Republicans, that shift to Democrats is cause for panic and denial. After all, Cuban-Americans are just about the only group of minority voters who have ever backed Republicans. If even their taste for the GOP is waning, then Republicans are in worse shape than previously thought.

For Democrats, it is difficult to think of a strategically more important group with which we could possibly hope to make inroads than Cuban-Americans. Cuban-Americans are a growing group of minority voters, concentrated strongly in THE largest and most important swing state in the country'Florida.

If Democrats can consolidate and expand upon the gains made in 2012 with Cuban-American voters in the coming years, it will suddenly become much more difficult for Republicans to win Florida's all-important 29 Electoral votes. If Cuban-Americans even begin to regularly split their vote roughly 50-50'much less to vote outright for Democrats'then Florida could shift from a lean-red state to a lean-blue state.

This is a point that Obama campaign manager Jim Messina recognizes very well:

Even parity is a triumph for the Obama campaign given the longstanding loyalty of anti-communist Cubans to the Republicans.

'This marks a dramatic realignment of politics in that state,' said Jim Messina, the Obama campaign manager.

And it is the GOP's worst fear come true:

Republicans will be worried that a community they had long been able to rely on was turning away from the party in Florida, the largest of the swing states and always a prize in the presidential poll.

And it wasn't only President Obama who made substantial gains among Cuban-American voters. For the first time (ever?), a Cuban-American Democrat got elected to Congress from Miami'Joe Garcia in FL-26. Garcia handily dispatched Republican incumbent David Rivera, 54 percent-43 percent.

Ever since Fidel Castro came to power in 1959 and prompted a wave of Cubans to flee north to Miami, the Cuban-American community in Florida, and especially in Miami proper, has been a solidly Republican voting bloc.

Because Florida is such an important state in the electoral college, the influence of Cuban-American voters on American politics has been profound. For example, if it were not for overwhelming support from Cuban-American voters for George W. Bush, Al Gore would have easily carried Florida by a large margin in 2000, and would thus have been the 43rd president.

And with Fidel Castro on death's door, the possibility of even greater change seems to be in the air.

(Continue reading below the fold.)