Venezuela Crisis Resonates Loudly In Battleground Florida
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MIAMI (CBSMiami/AP) - As Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro clings to power, many of the loudest American voices urging on the Trump administration in its campaign to push Maduro out are concentrated in Florida.
Florida has a large number of anti-Maduro Venezuelans and Cubans and is also likely to be a critical battleground state in the 2020 race for the White House.
As a result, the crisis in the South American country is reverberating politically thousands of miles away in the U.S.
U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz says that "foreign policy is domestic policy" in South Florida.
Nearly 17 percent of the state's registered voters are Hispanic, a group that includes Puerto Ricans, Venezuelans, and Cubans.
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio maintains that any political rewards associated with a tough stance against Venezuela are "overstated."
On Saturday, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans hit the streets worldwide to once again demand Maduro step down.
Maduro held a counter-rally in Caracas, attended mostly by members of the popular militia and members of the military.
(© Copyright 2019 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
