Olga Turon was just 21 years old when she fled Communist Cuba with her 3-year-old daughter in 1970.

“It wasn’t my country anymore,” said Turon, who spent most of her adult life in the New York Metropolitan area before moving to Texas. “I saw what socialism was like in my country, in Venezuela. It was scary. Being a socialist sounds good to some but socialism isn’t utopia.”

Like many Cuban exiles in the United States, Turon was enraged when former President Barack Obama normalized relations with Cuba in 2014. Many Cuban-Americans saw the Obama administration’s deal with Raul Castro, the brother of the late Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro, as a slap in the face.

Turon couldn’t get herself to vote for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Presidential race. Now in 2020, Turon is facing an emotional, political struggle. The 71-year-old doesn’t like the way President Donald Trump behaves nor is she pleased with his Covid-19 response but she’ll be voting for him in November.

“I can’t vote for Biden, the same reason I couldn’t vote for Hillary,” said Turon, who believes Democrats have betrayed Cuban exiles over the years.

Florida, a battleground state where polls show Trump and Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden neck-and-neck in the race, has the largest Cuban-American population in the United States. New Jersey comes in second with the heart of the Cuban community in Hudson County’s Union City, stretching into West New York. The ties between Miami’s “Little Havana” and Jersey’s “Havana on the Hudson,” run deep. While Cuban-Americans in New Jersey are conservative as a whole, many have been swayed to vote for Democratic candidates. In conversations, some Cuban-Americans tell me they identify with Democrats on national issues, and that in this election, those pressing nation-wide problems, like the pandemic and rising unemployment rates, especially among Latinos, take priority.

In Florida, most Cuban-Americans identify as Republican and have the power to determine elections. There’s also another dynamic at play in Miami-area, Latino neighborhoods — the growing Venezuelan population and an established Nicaraguan community. Both communities tend to be conservative as a voting bloc and detest Socialism. Many Venezuelans in Miami’s Doral section, affectionately nicknamed “Doralzuela,” fled their homeland in droves because of Socialist and Dictator Nicholas Maduro. Nicaraguans feel the same way about President Daniel Ortega as Cubans feel about Fidel Castro and Venezuelans feel about Maduro. They all believe Trump and the Republican Party will save them from communism.

Trump’s been courting all three groups, painting former Vice-President Biden as a Socialist. Trump, his family and Vice-President Mike Pence have vigorously campaigned in Florida, a swing state, where the Latino vote could be instrumental in the outcome of the election. In addition, if the President wins the electoral vote in both Florida and Pennsylvania, those victories could give him a second term in office.

It’s why New Jersey’s U.S. Senator Bob Menendez, a Democrat and the son of Cuban immigrants, has been hitting the campaign trail, virtually, taking part in radio and television interviews, in support of Biden, and against what he calls, Trump’s lies.

“They’ve got nothing to run on so they have to revert to fear,” Menendez said. “I remind Venezuelans that I just put out a torrid of information that I found where Trump has actually deported Venezuelans to third countries, which is in violation of our law. I remind them Democrats have been the ones that have sought temporary protective status under our law for Venezuelans in the United States and that he (Trump) is the one who rejects doing so.”

Menendez, the highest-ranking Latino in the U.S. Senate, broke ranks with his own party back in 2014, speaking out against Obama’s Cuba policy. In fact, he’s spent more than two decades of his career in Congress fighting for Democracy and human rights across the globe, including in China and Cuba. He’s one of the few Democrats who may have the ability to reach conservative Latinos.

“I remind them when I hear the President say, ‘the press is the enemy of the people,’ I hear that from authoritarian regimes, dictatorships,” Menendez added. “When the President of the United States sends the National Guard out to clear out peaceful protestors, as he did at the White House, I am reminded of when the Castros sent state security against peaceful dissenters inside of Cuba.”

“I’ve said to the Biden campaign, we’re not going to win the Cuban community but we can make a dent into it and whenever Democrats have gotten a dent into the (Cuban) community, they’ve won Florida.”

Rafael Franco, the political liaison for Hispanic Republicans of Hudson County, echoes the President’s sentiments, claiming the Media has turned journalism into politics. When pressed on the fact the Media represents thousands of organizations, Franco claimed Latinos aren’t able to get fair reports from Spanish news stations, CNN and Fox News. Franco says Latinos care about jobs and that President Trump has delivered on his promise of prosperity for the Latino community.

“Our economy is doing well, our families have been taken care of by the President,” Franco said.

However, according to recent data, more than 2 million Americans are unemployed. Non-partisan Pew Research Center finds Latinos have been hit hard, especially Hispanic women, whose unemployment rate rose from 5.5 to 20.5 percent between February and April. In fact, according to the same research, six in 10 Latinos say they live in households that have experienced job losses or pay cuts because of the Coronavirus Pandemic. But Franco claims Trump’s the person who’ll bring the economy back, adding he’s got more support than ever in Florida and the Garden State’s Latino communities.

“Although we’re a blue state (New Jersey), Donald Trump had a rally in South Jersey and thousands attended, and a great majority were Latinos from Hudson County,” Franco said. “We actually got buses to take people there.”

Senator Menendez says Trump’s policies, including his lack of response to COVID-19, have devastated Latino families.

“Cubans and Venezuelans are not immune to COVID,” Menendez said. “If you’re Latino, you’re more likely to catch COVID, you’re more likely to die from it, and Florida is one of the prime examples of that.”

“It’s unfortunate many people had to die but we still don’t know how the virus was created or spread,” said Franco, pointing to conspiracies, adding it’s a global pandemic that’s affected all countries.

The United States leads the world in Coronavirus deaths. More than 220,000 people have died of Covid-19, and health officials say Americans need to prepare themselves for a difficult fall and winter.

Menendez says that’s the message he’ll continue to share with Latinos, as well as Trump’s other failures, including threats of deporting Dreamers and his lack of empathy toward Puerto Ricans on the island after Hurricane Maria in 2017.

Florida’s home to close to a million residents of Puerto Rican descent, mainly along the I-4 Corridor. Many of them left the island and took refuge in the Sunshine State after Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico. President Trump’s visit to Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Maria got him lots of negative attention.

“It was President Trump throwing out paper towels as if they were some Third World country,” Menendez said. “It was the President who held up money that Congress voted for to get relief for them. It was the President who said we should let go of Puerto Rico because it cost us money.”

But Trump doesn’t see it that way. In September, he announced 13 billion dollars in additional aid to Puerto Rico to help with the island’s rebuilding effort. The Biden campaign called it an election ploy. Still, Puerto Rico’s lame-duck Governor Wanda Vasquez, who was defeated in her own primary, endorsed Trump, urging Puerto Ricans on the mainland to vote for him. At a recent rally in Florida, Trump boasted about the endorsement and made comments that had many scratching their heads.

“I’m not going to say the best, but I’m just about the best thing that ever happened to Puerto Rico,” The President said at the rally. “You better vote for me Puerto Rico!”

The problem is residents on the island can’t vote in a presidential election. Trump’s words set off a Twitter storm, with many questioning his knowledge of the Commonwealth, but the President’s intention may have been to get the attention of Puerto Ricans, who moved to Florida after the Hurricane. They can vote in November’s election.

“The Governor of Puerto Rico may be supporting him but she is immensely unpopular in Puerto Rico and these people are reminded that they had to leave Puerto Rico, not because they wanted to, but because they had to (move),” Menendez said.

Franco disagrees, saying while Governor Vasquez has dealt with internal issues, she’s still popular with her own base. Either way, Latinos represent close to 19 percent of the U.S. population. In Florida, that number stands at around 23 percent. Latinos don’t vote as a bloc. Like the rest of America, Latinos are diverse with different beliefs and experiences. In the 2016 Presidential Election, Hillary Clinton got 66 percent of the Latino vote while Trump garnered 28 percent. But polls show Trump’s support among Latinos might be a bit stronger this time around.

Thousands hit the polls on Monday in Florida, the starting day of early voting in the state. One thing is certain, neither side is taking the Latino vote for granted in 2020. Both Republicans and Democrats like Menendez will be getting out the vote until the last minute.