In Hialeah, Florida GOP candidates evoke socialism to woo Hispanic voters
With only five days remaining before the November election, top candidates on the Republican ticket rallied Thursday night in Hialeah for a final push to woo Cuban-American voters. Against the backdrop of recent polls showing tight margins across the ballot, the GOP candidates issued a call to action to stop the Democratic Party, arguing it has been overtaken by socialism and asserting that Republicans are key to halting its progress in Florida.
Byron Donalds, the three-term Naples Republican congressman running against Democrat David Jolly to keep Florida under Republican control, told the packed room of Hispanic voters Thursday that Hialeah was the place where “we stand up to communists, we stand up to socialists.”
“In five days, we are going to win. We are going to keep Florida free, and we are going to keep Florida Red,” he said at the Hialeah Park Casino.
Cuban-American voters are a vital base for the Florida Republican Party and have helped shift Miami-Dade County toward the GOP in recent elections. Polling suggests a close gubernatorial race, but a recent Florida International University poll of Cuban voters shows Donalds leading Jolly 60% to 24% among those who have already decided whom to support for governor.
To win over Hispanic voters who fled regimes in countries like Cuba and Venezuela, the GOP has tapped into fears of a socialist takeover, fueled by the rise of increasingly progressive Democratic candidates.
The event was part of the Donalds’ 50-stop “Defending the Florida Dream” bus tour across 38 counties, which included his running mate, Hialeah native Bryan Avila; U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody; Attorney General James Uthmeier; Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia; and Donald Trump Jr.
The primary target of criticism for the evening was Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Angie Nixon, a progressive community organizer whose grassroots-style campaign victory in the Democratic primary sent shockwaves through Florida politics. Her association with the Democratic Socialists of America has been a point of contention within the Florida Democratic Party and a point of attack for the GOP.
Moody, the Republican incumbent, who was appointed to her role by Gov. Ron DeSantis after Marco Rubio became Secretary of State, on Thursday accused Nixon of being a pawn of communist ideology. She evoked a recent CBS News interview in which Nixon was asked whether the Cuban government was a dictatorship.
“That is what people have told me,” Nixon responded. “I have never been to Cuba, and so I will have to take their word for it.”
Nixon had called Cuba a dictatorship prior to the interview, and has repeated that position since. But Moody said Thursday that Nixon “has amnesia about whether Cuba is a dictatorship.”
“Our foreign adversaries are laughing right now that a major party, the Democratic Party, has nominated people for their party nomination that are members of a socialist organization. That is like unleashing termites in the House of America,” she said.
Polling indicates a competitive race between the two candidates. The most recent survey by St. Pete Polls places Moody ahead of Nixon 49% to 45%, with Nixon leading among Hispanic voters. However, the FIU poll of Cuban voters — who as a group are more conservative than other Hispanic voters — shows Moody leading Nixon 51% to 26% among those who have decided on a candidate.
The special guest for the night was Donald Trump Jr., draped in a navy blue suit. He spoke about his mom, Ivana Trump, an immigrant from the Czech Republic who fled communism in the 70s. He said he understood what it was like to flee communism from her experience and that of his grandparents. He said, “it’s not so sexy” as Democratic Socialists like U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders make it seem.
He encouraged voters to vote red down the ballot and talk to their friends to make sure they “understand what’s at stake.”
“Byron’s become a great friend over the years because he was a true defender of my father, of ourselves, of our family,” he said. “But more importantly than all of that, for the freedoms that we deserve in America, and that’s why he needs to be the next governor of the great state of Florida.”
Donalds, who is on the verge of making history as Florida’s first Black governor, and a Republican at that, asked an applauding crowd, “Are you with us to keep Florida free? Are you with us to keep Florida Red?”
To which more than 100 supporters, on their feet, yelled an enthusiastic “Yeah!”
This story was originally published October 30, 2026 at 5:25 AM with the headline "In Hialeah, Florida GOP candidates evoke socialism to woo Hispanic voters."
