Trump’s Latino supporters in Miami aren’t ready to accept election defeat

Across South Florida’s Latino communities, supporters of President Donald Trump reacted to the news of Joe Biden’s election win with a mixture of disbelief and defiance.

Biden’s 2020 victory makes the former vice-president the first candidate in 28 years to win the White House without winning Florida, where a surge in Miami-Dade Latino support proved consequential in handing the state’s electors to Trump.

And so, as Biden supporters banged pots, waved flags, and danced downtown in celebration on Saturday — after multiple media organizations called Pennsylvania for the Biden campaign shortly before noon — others demonstrated in support of President Trump, wrongfully insisting the election is far from over.

In Little Havana, a group of Trump supporters huddled in front of the iconic cafe Versailles, while others drove by in cars decked out with Trump signs and flags.

“Fraud. It’s all been a big fraud,” said Maria Clemente, a Cuban-American, while waving a flag that read “Socialism Sucks” and “Trump 2020.”

“The result will change,” she added. “This isn’t over. For me, this is far from over.”

Isabel Sierra, another pro-Trump protester in front of Versailles, agreed. She came to Miami from Venezuela in 1998.

“The result isn’t final yet. The legal fight starts Monday,” Sierra said, referencing a Trump campaign announcement that new legal challenges to election results will be launched next week. So far, the Trump camp’s legal strategy has proved unsuccessful.

In addition to erroneously believing election results are still undecided, both Clemente and Sierra brought up a number of conspiracy theories about electoral fraud, including the disproved notion that some states had more ballots than they did registered voters, as well as false allegations that election officials in battleground states tried to ban Republican observers from polling stations.

In the days after Nov. 3, such theories have been spreading in Miami-area Spanish-language Facebook groups, as well as on Spanish language radio.

On Friday afternoon, during an appearance on Radio Mambí, Miami’s leading Cuban-exile radio station, Cubans4Trump co-founder Ariel Martinez called the prospect of Biden winning the election “a literal coup”.

In a Facebook Live published Saturday afternoon, he added: “What we are witnessing right now is the biggest electoral fraud in the history of this nation.”

So far, no evidence has surfaced that would suggest the election was fraudulent or illegitimate.

HUNDREDS OF LATINO TRUMP SUPPORTERS RALLY NEAR WESTCHESTER

Outside La Carreta, a Cuban restaurant located near Westchester, Trump supporters started gathering as early at 2PM, where they celebrated their candidate’s Florida win and railed against what they described as “electoral fraud.”

Despite intermittent rain showers, the crowd grew over the course of the afternoon. By 4:30 p.m., hundreds had gathered in front of the restaurant, where they waived US, Cuban, and Venezuelan flags, as well as signs that read “four more years” and “esto es un fraude”, or “this was a fraud.” Countless others honked their horns in support as they drove by.

The mood was both angry and joyous, with chants of “this is a steal” interspersed with the sound of the upbeat Trump salsa song by the Cuban band Los 3 de la Habana.

“The Democrats are trying to steal this election,” said Martín Bermúdez, who moved from El Salvador to the US 1981 after the outbreak of that country’s civil war.

Bermúdez had brought his “MAGA Limousine” to the gathering, a black car decorated with the faces of various US political leaders (including Trump’s).

Luz Domínguez, a Cuban-American immigrant from Camagüey, arrived at the restaurant around 3 p.m., with her car covered with American flags and Trump flags. The 79 year-old says she doesn’t want to see herself forced to flee another country the way she fled her native land when Fidel Castro rose to power.

“I left Cuba in search of freedom. And here there is freedom.”

She added that the “election theft will be set straight by the courts”.

“America is a unique place and I believe this matter will go all the way to the Supreme Court, and it will get resolved there. Trump will get four more years,” she said.

Domínguez says she doesn’t believe Biden could have won because of reports that his total vote count has eclipsed that of Ronald Reagan, whom she considers to be “God-sent.”

“It’s simply impossible,” she added.

The numbers tell a different story. In 1984, Reagan got 54,455,472 votes. Biden has so far amassed more than 75 million, a number that is still growing.

According to Dominguez, some of those votes must come from “aliens and people who died in World War II.”

Also among the Trump group stood a few members of Proud Boys. Pedro Barrios, a 27-year-old psychologist, said members of the organization took part in the protest to join in calling out “the fraud.”

“They say we’re white supremacists, but look at me, I’m a tan Latino, son of Cubans,” he said, adding he arrived to the U.S. at age 9.

He said the evidence of the electoral wrongdoing “hasn’t come out yet” but “it’s out there and will come out once we take it to the courts.”

WORRIES OVER THE IMPENDING ARRIVAL OF “COMMUNISM”

Despite relentless accusations by Republicans of being a “socialist” or even a “castro-chavista,” Biden has a decades-long track record as a centrist and a political moderate. In Latin America, Biden’s platform would land him squarely in the procapitalist, center right wing of most governments there.

Even so, many Latino pro-Trump supporters expressed on Saturday heartfelt concern over Biden implementing a socialist agenda similar to those of their home countries.

“I came to this country as a child, and I don’t want it to turn into the hell that my parents lived through,” said Armando Luis Acosta, a Cuban-American from Kendall whose entire backyard is covered with pro-Trump political signs.

Acosta, who is 58, voted for Trump “because of his hard stance against communists, both foreign and domestic”.

For Clemente, Biden’s arrival to the White House would mean only one thing for her adopted home country: “comunismo”.

“It’s communism. I came here from Cuba 55 years ago. I’ve seen how this story plays out. What happened there is what’s happening here with Biden,” she said.

“I told my daughter today that I’m thinking of going back to Cuba. If it’s between living under communism here or there, I might as well go back to my country.”

El Nuevo Herald reporter Mario Penton contributed information to this report.