• Submitted by: manso
• Politics and Government
• 11 / 23 / 2010

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By a greater than two-to-one margin, Americans would like President Barack Obama and Congress to lift the Cuba embargo, according to a Widmeyer post-election online survey commissioned by Cuba Standard.

Forty-seven percent of those polled said “yes” to lifting the embargo, compared to 22 percent saying “no”, and three in 10 (31%) unsure.

Americans in favor of lifting the embargo and allowing travel to Cuba are also more intense, with double the number saying “definitely yes” (18%) than those saying “definitely no” (9%).

Six in 10 men (61%) believe the embargo should be lifted, compared to just one-third of women (34%). Most of the difference is due to women being 25 points more unsure than men. African-Americans (52%) and Hispanics (53%) are seven to eight points more likely to say “yes” than Whites.  Those living the in the Western United States (52%) and 65 years old and over (51%) are more likely to say yes than other sub-groups.

In a historical reversal, the Nov. 2 midterm elections in the United States returned control of the House of Representatives to the Republican Party, stalling efforts to pass a measure that would lift the travel ban against Cuba. Thanks to the Republican House majority, Miami Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen — a staunch defender of the embargo — will likely chair the crucial House Foreign Affairs Committee. Already, on Friday Ros-Lehtinen announced she and fellow Florida Republicans would press for measures against “dangerous” governments in Latin America.

Observers believe that U.S.-Cuba relations, as a result, will be frozen in time for at least the next two years.

As part of the Republican victory, two hard-line Cuban American candidates won in Florida. Marco Rubio prevailed over Gov. Charlie Crist in the race for one of Florida’s two Senate seats; and Republican David Rivera beat Democrat Joe Garcia in the race for the District 25 House seat in South Florida.

However, a continuous drop in popularity of the U.S. sanctions, including among Cuban Americans, has begun to erode the hard-line positioning of political candidates, even in Florida. Both Charlie Crist and Joe Garcia relied on fundraising by pro-normalization groups during their campaigns. In June, a Miami-based anti-embargo group raised funds for Crist, and Joe Garcia collected funds from pro-normalizers in Tampa. Neither Crist nor Garcia, though, took a public stance in favor of normalization.

Widmeyer from Nov. 3 to 7 asked 1,000 adults the question: “Should President Obama and Congress lift the United States embargo against Cuba and allow Americans to travel to and trade with Cuba?”

The demographics of the online survey are stratified to represent the U.S. population according to census data. The poll has an overall margin of error of +/- 3.1, based on a 95-percent confidence interval.

Source: www.cubastandard.com/2010/11/22/cuba-standard-poll-americans-favor-end-o...