Poll: Cuban Americans back Obama's thaw in Cuba policy

A majority of Cuban Americans support President Barack Obama and back his moves to improve relations with Cuba, according to a new poll that suggests the community's staunch support for a tough U.S. stance against the Castro government may be eroding.

The survey said 64 percent of respondents favor Obama's directive to lift all restrictions on remittances and visits by Cuban Americans to family in Cuba. Twenty-seven percent of respondents said they were opposed to the measure.

The telephone survey of 400 Cuban-American adults in Florida, New Jersey and other states was conducted in Spanish and English on April 15-16, days after Obama announced his administration would relax sanctions against Havana. The margin of error is plus or minus 5 percentage points.

''Ten years ago, you wouldn't have seen anything near these numbers. Now it's the reality of where the community is,'' said Fernand Amandi, a pollster with Miami's Bendixen & Associates, a Democratic firm that did the survey. ``It's unprecedented to suggest that the community for the first time is aligned with a Democratic president when it comes to Cuba policy.''

Though Obama stopped far short of endorsing travel for all Americans, the poll suggests he would have support for that measure, too. The poll found that two-thirds of Cuban American adults -- 67 percent -- support lifting travel restrictions so that all Americans could travel to Cuba.

Obama has said he supports keeping in place the 47-year-old economic embargo against Cuba and the survey notes that the community is split on maintaining the embargo. Forty-two percent of respondents believe it should be continued, while 43 percent believe it should be scrapped.

Amandi said the poll reflects that more recent arrivals from Cuba and second- and third-generation Cuban Americans ''don't necessarily share the hard-line point of view their predecessors had'' and that some older exiles may be ``changing their minds as well.

''There would have been tremendous opposition to any kind of loosening of sanctions six or 10 years ago,'' Amandi said. ``This represents a 180-degree change, a realization that after 50 years nothing has been done to bring liberty to Cuba.''

Mauricio Claver Carone, a leading pro-embargo lobbyist, noted,