Fernando Barruos stands outside a polling station in Hialeah, a mostly Cuban-American area of Miami, seething as supporters of Donald Trump wave flags and blast out jaunty Latin pop songs venerating the Republican President.
But there is also a wry smile beneath his face mask. Mr Barruos, 77, a Dominican, has furtively persuaded a dozen Cuban-American neighbours to drop their long-standing support for Republicans and switch to Democratic candidate Joe Biden.
Florida’s Cuban Americans have deep ties to the Republican Party and Mr Trump is counting on their support to deliver him the state’s 29 electoral votes on November 3, in what is perhaps his only path to keeping the White House.
“Trump’s popular among Cubans because they think the Democrats are communists,” said Mr Barruos, referring to those under the late Fidel Castro, who have controlled the Caribbean island since a revolution in the 1950s.
“But it’s stupid. They don’t know what a communist is. They don’t know that Europeans can manage a moderate form of socialism.
"I’ve been here for 50 years and I know America will never turn communist.”
Mr Barruos, a retired airline pilot, worked hard to turn Republican-voting Cuban-American neighbours who expressed misgivings about Mr Trump.
He bought them lunch and drove them to polling stations, aiming to deliver 17 Democratic votes in all.
Latin American politics hangs heavy over the election in southern Florida.
Slogans on trucks saying “no al socialismo” resonate with Hispanics who abhor leftists such as the Castros or Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, and Daniel Ortega, President of Nicaragua.
Julio Martinez, 77, a Vietnam War veteran who helps to run a pro-Trump club for former servicemen, left Cuba with his family in the 1950s.
He praises Mr Trump as a patriot, business expert and champion of the armed forces.
“Biden is in no mental shape to run this country,” Mr Martinez said.
“If he’s elected, he’ll go away very quickly and then it’s going to be Kamala Harris as president, and she’s an admitted communist.”
Mr Martinez and others worry that Mr Biden, a centrist, is a front for more radical politicians, such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who they say will take the country in a hard-left, anti-business direction.
These views are amplified by Spanish-language YouTube shows that peddle disinformation and conspiracy theories. They influence a growing number of Latinos, particularly young men.
Mr Martinez was out rallying Cuban Americans to cast early votes at the mural-decorated John F Kennedy Library in Hialeah in western Miami – an almost entirely Hispanic area, where about 75 per cent of residents have Cuban roots.
The Cuban American community in Miami votes overwhelmingly Republican.
This is often attributed to their conservative and business-friendly values and support for the embargo and other tough US policies against the leftist elite in Havana.
But they are not the only Latinos in Florida. Cuban-American voters make up 29 per cent of the 2.5 million registered Latino electorate.
Whereas they lean towards the Republicans, groups originating from other parts of Latin America back the Democrats.
Puerto Ricans, the second-biggest group, make up 27 per cent of Florida’s voters, followed by those from Mexico, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Peru and elsewhere, the Pew Research Centre says.
Florida’s population of Latino voters has grown by 476,000 since 2016, when the state backed Mr Trump, and now makes up 17 per cent of all voters.
Crucially, the share of Republican-leaning Cuban Americans is declining.
Four years ago, Mr Trump beat Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by 113,000 votes in Florida.
Even small shifts among Latino voters could swing a state that he needs to win if he wants to remain in the Oval Office for another four years.
“There are 2,220 Paraguayans registered to vote in Florida,” said Eduardo Gamarra, a professor of political science at Florida International University.
“So if we get within a tight margin, even Paraguayans could claim that they elected the next president.”
An average of Florida polls by Real Clear Politics gave Mr Biden a 1.2 per cent lead over Mr Trump on Friday, well within the margin of error that means either candidate could win the country’s most valuable swing state.
Mr Trump knows this and will address a crowd of Cuban Americans and others at Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport, north of Hialeah, on Sunday night.
This week, he courted Latino votes in Tampa, 450 kilometres to the north-west.
“Biden’s agenda will devastate the Hispanic American community. He betrayed Hispanic Americans for 47 years,” Mr Trump said.
He was polling well among a community that he has “always loved", he said.
“This election will decide whether our children will be condemned to the misery of socialism or whether they will inherit the glorious legacy of American freedom," Mr Trump said.
By reimposing sanctions on Cuba and backing Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, Mr Trump won fans.
But he also called Mexicans rapists and led hard-line immigration policies on building a border wall and caging migrants, including children.
Speaking this week at Coconut Creek, north of Miami, Mr Biden appealed directly to Cuban Americans and Venezuelan Americans, promising that as president he would stand up to repressive Latin American dictators.
“Cuba is no closer to freedom and democracy today than it was four years ago,” said Mr Biden, citing an increase in political prisoners in Cuba and Havana’s deepening ties with Russia during Mr Trump’s presidency.
“[Mr Trump cannot] advance democracy and human rights for the Cuban people, or the Venezuelan people for that matter, when he has embraced so many autocrats around the world."
As of Saturday, 8.3 million Florida residents, about 59 per cent of the state’s registered voters, had cast early ballots with ever more Americans opting to vote before November 3 during the coronavirus pandemic.
Among them was Katie Cisneros, 21, a public administration and marketing student of Cuban and Colombian descent, who voted for Mr Trump.
Ms Cisneros said she felt the “socialist traumatisation” of her Cuban heritage but decided to support Mr Trump based on his record on the economy.
“He’s a businessman," she said. "Sometimes he doesn't know how to be politically correct in situations and he uses words that he shouldn't and I personally don't agree with.
“But the policy shows otherwise and does help the communities.”
