Vermont Senator Bernie Sander’s month-long status as frontrunner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination came to a sudden halt at the end of February, beginning with former Vice President Joe Biden’s landslide victory in South Carolina. What followed was an assortment of dropouts and endorsements to Biden, and Sander’s underperformance on Super Tuesday.

For the seventy-eight-year-old democratic socialist, the future doesn’t look any brighter, especially in usually sunny Florida. A new poll conducted in the state has Biden with a stunning 49% victory margin.

Conducted on March 4, prior to former Mayor Michael Bloomberg (who subsequently endorsed Biden) and Senator Elizabeth Warren suspending their campaigns, it has Joe Biden commanding 61% of the vote. Sanders was in third, with 12%, behind the now departed Bloomberg’s 14%. Warren had 5%.

What caused this enormous disparity?

Last month, in an interview with Anderson Cooper, Sanders made comments that were interpreted as overly sympathetic to the communist dictatorship in Cuba and the legacy of Fidel Castro. "We're very opposed to the authoritarian nature of Cuba, but, you know, it's unfair to simply say everything is bad," Sanders told Cooper. "When Fidel Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing? Even though Fidel Castro did it?"

Sanders subsequently defended his statements in the next Democratic debate. “Of course, you have a dictatorship in Cuba. What I said is what Barack Obama said in terms of Cuba. That Cuba made progress on education…when dictatorships, whether it is the Chinese or the Cubans do something good, you acknowledge that.”  

Florida has a vocal and active Cuban minority, many of them descended from expatriates who fled the Castro-led Cuban Revolution in 1959. “Florida is one of those states where international politics matters about as much as the domestic does," said former Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, who was the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in 2018. “And if you don't get that, then you will have a very, very difficult time competing in the state of Florida, not just with Cubans, but quite frankly, the diversity of the Latin American community represented in the state of Florida.”

Supporters of Senator Sanders have said his comments on Cuba are being overblown, and that they’re part of a redbaiting strategy to sink his campaign. But many in Florida worry about how Sanders would perform, not just in the primary, but as the presidential nominee in November. Donald Trump won Florida in 2016,

Florida (which is the primary state with the fourth most delegates) votes on March 17, on the same day as Arizona, Illinois, and Ohio. It will follow the next democratic debate, scheduled for March 15, which is likely to feature only Sanders and Biden.

Hunter DeRensis is the senior reporter for the National Interest. Follow him on Twitter @HunterDeRensis.