Cubans make last push with salsa to reelect Trump

On the spur of the moment, a singer in a Cuban salsa band had an idea for a lyric to please fellow Trump supporters at a Miami birthday party.

Tirso Paez flicked his hand so his band mates would let him take over, and instead of singing the expected "Even out of Cuba, Cuba is me," he belted out: "Yo voy a votar, por Donald Trump!"

The seemingly spontaneous moment with Los 3 de la Habana was live-streamed and soon viewed by tens of thousands.

The Trump campaign quickly seized on it, releasing a national ad with a revamped version of the song last week that channels Miami Cuban enthusiasm for the Republican leader to Latino markets across the country.

Polls show support for Trump is surging among Florida's Cuban Americans, a key demographic with influence over fellow Latinos that could swing a tight race in a state the president must win to beat Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

In the past four years, Trump has improved his standing with these voters by undoing former President Barack Obama's Cuba engagement policy, sanctioning Latin-American socialist governments and repeatedly accusing Democrats of being leftists and anti-capitalists.

Since that first video was widely shared, the band appeared at rallies and fundraisers, singing the line in English: "Oh my God, I will vote for Donald Trump."

They shared a stage with Ivanka Trump and a boat ride with Eric Trump, and their song was kept on a loop outside an early voting station in the Cuban stronghold of Hialeah this week, where supporters waved American and Blue Lives Matter flags alongside a cardboard cutout of the president.

Democrats had been banking on younger Cuban Americans to be more open to warming ties with the island, even if older exiles remain staunchly opposed.

Obama carried the state in both 2008 and 2012, and Trump narrowly defeated Hilary Clinton in 2016.

She found some support among Cubans who initially were put off by Trump's unpredictable style, especially after he thwarted fellow Republican and Cuban American Sen. Marco Rubio's presidential aspirations.

Now, a Florida International University poll of Cuban Americans in Miami-Dade County released earlier this month shows Trump leading Biden 59% to 25%.

The same poll showed Trump leading among young Cubans, unlike in 2016, and the GOP gaining three out of four new arrivals from the island between 2010 and 2015 who registered to vote.

Miami-Dade has more than 1.5 million Hispanics who are 18 and older, more than half of them with Cuban heritage.

The musicians of Los 3 de la Habana say Trump's economic and foreign policies have been his main achievements.

Ana Pinelli Paez, Tirso Paez's mother and fellow band member, remembers when they survived on only red beans, plantains and bread before leaving Cuba in 2007.

She likes that Trump focuses on regular people, she said, "and he prioritizes Americans."