“If Bernie Sanders is atop the ticket, it’s going to make it tougher for all of us to win in Florida,” said Fernandez, who has endorsed Sanders’s rival, Joe Biden. “No one really sees Sanders winning Florida and I don’t think his campaign does either.”

As a state with an influential cross-section of Latinos whose families fled leftist Latin American regimes and violence, Sanders embrace of far-left leaders and his past refusals to wholeheartedly condemn Latin American strongmen and the Soviet Union have long been seen as fatal flaws.

Sanders on Sunday did nothing to allay those concerns in a 60 Minutes interview where he was asked about his 1985 comments stating that the Cuban people didn’t “rise up in rebellion against Fidel Castro” because “he educated their kids, gave their kids health care, totally transformed society.”

There was no mention of the firing squads, political purges and mass arrests that accompanied the 1959 revolution.

"We're very opposed to the authoritarian nature of Cuba but you know, it's unfair to simply say everything is bad. You know?" Sanders said Sunday when asked about the remarks. "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’ campaign dismisses concerns about socialism as modern-day “red-baiting” and points to polling, however, that shows he’s essentially tied with Donald Trump in Florida, just like other Democrats like Biden.

But that could change under the kind of sustained assault that Trump’s campaign is waiting to unleash once he becomes the nominee -- Florida is a must-win state for Trump.

And if it’s easier for him to defend the Sunshine State, he’ll be able to play offense in the Rust Belt states that Democrats unexpectedly lost in 2016 to him.

As a swing state, Florida is traditionally more moderate than Sanders’s brand of progressivism. No major party candidate nominee here has ever called himself a socialist, nor has one been as critical of Israel, which could be problematic in the March 17 primary because 70 percent of Florida’s estimated 600,000 Jewish voters are Democrats.

In Florida, the concerns with Sanders are particularly acute in the Jewish- and Hispanic-heavy southeast, notably the Miami-area, a liberal bastion that a Democrat needs to carry by big margins to win the state. Top Florida elections are often decided by about a percent or less, making small shifts in the electorate loom large on Election Night.

Sanders’s positions on Latin America could be the most problematic in a general election. If leads to defections to Trump or low Hispanic turnout, it could make a material difference In a state where Latinos account for more than 17 percent of the registered voters.

Florida doesn’t have a single Latino community. It has immigrants and exiles from multiple Latin American countries where “socialism” is a loaded term. When Sanders says he wants to lead a “revolution,” it sounds like “revolución!” to many in South Florida who fled Castro and other leftist regimes. Sanders’s supporters have even earned the nickname “Sandernistas,” a play on Sandinistas, the socialist guerillas who overthrew the right-wing Samoza dictatorship in Nicaragua in 1979.

Sanders has a long history of making favorable statements about Cuba, remarks that have salience beyond the Cuban-American community, which is clustered in Miami.

Venezuelan exiles, whose home country descended into poverty under Havana-backed dictator Nicolas Maduro, have increasingly found common cause with anti-communist Cubans. Venezuelans in Miami were outraged when Sanders last year initially refused to call Maduro a dictator.

Nicaraguans were also troubled by Sanders past praise of Nicaragua’s leftist leader Daniel Ortega, an ally of Castros. Bolivians who oppose Evo Morales — who in November expressed solidarity with “mi hermano” Sanders — was forced from power in a “coup,” which occurred after voting irregularities marred the strongman’s reelection from which he was constitutionally barred anyway.

All of these positions have made Sanders a hero of the far left, which for decades has been opposed to America’s military interventions in Latin America and support of right-wing regimes.

But in South Florida, the totality of Sanders’ record promises to be a drag on Democrats keeping and turning out Latinos, said Christian Ulvert, a Democratic consultant who specializes in Hispanic outreach.

Last year, Ulvert conducted a poll that showed 68 percent of the Hispanic-heavy Miami-Dade electorate overall — and 65 percent of Hispanics — in the county said they would be less likely to favor a candidate who is aligned with Sanders or his ally, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Only 13 percent of Hispanics and 28 percent of voters overall favored Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez. However, 92 percent of self-identified progressives in the county said they would be more likely to support a candidate aligned with the two.

“I can’t even talk about Bernie Sanders around my family,” Ulvert, who isn’t backing another candidate, said. “My family was literally chased out of Nicaragua by Daniel Ortega. They think someone who embraces a thug who chased out democracy from Nicaragua is appalling, and that’s putting it lightly.”

Ulvert added that his husband, who was born in Venezuela, will vote for the first time as a U.S. citizen in a presidential election and views Sanders’s candidacy as “heart-wrenching because it represents what he fled from in Venezuela.”

There isn’t any public polling that specifically tests Sanders favorability rating and perceptions about socialism among Florida’s Latino voters, but a survey released earlier this month from the Democratic firm Equis Research showed how unique Florida is when it comes to Sanders and Latinos. The state was the only one of 10 it surveyed where Latino voters viewed Sanders less favorably than favorably. His net image rating was -6, the same as Trump in Florida.

Nationwide, a Telemundo poll showed Latinos would be less likely to vote for a socialist candidate by a 41-point margin.

Sanders’s campaign says Florida is more winnable than pundits think because the Vermont senator brings an enthusiastic base of grassroots supporters and an ability to bring out non-traditional and young voters.

“The Latino population in Florida is not monolithic. There is a large number of Puerto Ricans who have come to Florida who are very supportive of the role Sen. Sanders has played in trying to protect the people of Puerto Rico, whether it’s from the vagaries of Donald Trump or the weather or financial control boards,” Jeff Weaver, a top Sanders adviser, told POLITICO. “I think there’s a lot of opportunity for Sen. Sanders in Florida.”

Weaver said that Sanders will succeed in Florida among Latino voters for the same reason he does elsewhere: he wins young voters.

“In some of those communities, there are generational divides,” Weaver said.

But younger voters turn out at lower rates and account for a smaller share of registered voters than those who are middle-aged and elderly, especially in Florida.

Among Florida Puerto Ricans, who haven’t had the same experience as other Latinos with leftist regimes, there’s a generational divide, said consultant Frederick Velez, who said he has heard older Boricuas tell him that “if Bernie’s the candidate, I won’t go vote because of the fears of socialism.”

“But I’ve also seen people with no intention of participating who want to go out and vote for Bernie, and he’s the only reason they want to participate,” said Velez. “It’s the only candidate where I’ve seen that.”

One of Velez’s clients, Miami state House Democratic candidate Gabriela De Jesús, said she welcomes the energy Sanders brings and doesn’t think “socialism” is an issue people will care about. But she is concerned about Biden being the nominee.

“There’s no excitement for him,” she said.

For his part, Sanders has moderated some of his past positions on Latin America by recently expressing concerns about Ortega and, after being put on the spot on a debate stage, calling Maduro a dictator.

Still, Republicans are ready to frame Sanders as an “all-out Marxist”, honing a message from 2018 against Andrew Gillum, the progressive Democratic gubernatorial nominee who lost to Ron DeSantis by less than half a point amid low Hispanic turnout.

“Republicans thought ‘socialism’ was an argument that would just work with Cubans or Venezuelans. But then they saw it worked across sections of the electorate in the state,” said a top Florida Democrat involved with Gillum’s campaign. “It’s not just Cubans and Venezuelans. It’s not just Colombians or Nicaraguans. It’s non-Hispanic white people in Central Florida and Tampa Bay. So Republicans made it national. And I’m pissed because we didn’t shut it down and we gave them a national message against us.”

In DeSantis’ polling, shared with POLITICO by a top adviser, 55 percent of Florida voters who were unfamiliar with Gillum after his 2018 primary win said they would be “much less likely” to support the Democrat when told of Sanders’s endorsement. In Miami’s media market, the DeSantis adviser said, Trump’s endorsement of DeSantis was viewed more favorably than Sanders’ endorsement of Gillum by 48-36 percent, a statistically significant 12 points.

DeSantis on Monday said Sanders’s attempt to “whitewash the brutality of the Castro dictatorship is totally unacceptable.”

At Wednesday’s presidential candidate debate, candidate Michael Bloomberg swiped at Sanders for advocating “communism.” And last month at a pro-Israel rally in the Jewish-heavy South Florida city of Aventura, Bloomberg poked fun at Sanders as a collectivist.

“I’m not the only Jewish candidate running for president,” Bloomberg said. “But I am the only one who doesn’t want to turn America into a kibbutz.”

Sanders gave one of his most full-throated defenses Wednesday night of Nordic-style socialism, as opposed to struggling Latin American socialist governments.

“We are living in many ways in a socialist society right now,” Sanders said at the debate. “The problem is, as Dr. Martin Luther King reminded us. We have socialism for the very rich. Rugged individualism for the poor.”

Applause rang out in the Las Vegas debate hall.

In Florida, Sanders’s reception has been far frostier, starting with the 2016 Democratic presidential primary in which Hillary Clinton walloped him by 64-33 percent.

Though he’s essentially tied with Trump in Florida polls now, Trump’s campaign says that will change amid a planned saturation ad campaign designed to boil the campaign down to a choice between a conservative and a socialist.

“We’re ready to dump it all on Bernie. But not yet,” said a top Trump campaign official, who was not authorized to discuss internal strategy publicly.

Polls show Bloomberg, prior to the Wednesday debate, was leading in Florida matchups against primary rivals as well as Trump. In the primary, Bloomberg led Biden 26-20 percent with Sanders at third with 13 percent, according to one survey of the primary by Ryan Tyson, the Republican pollster who conducted the new survey in Florida.

Sanders’s relatively low standing in Florida contrasts sharply with his top position in national polls and his results in the first three early states. And Sanders might not be so easy to beat as some forecast, Tyson said.

“The Republican Party was overtaken by populism in 2016, so it wouldn’t shock me to see the Democrat Party overtaken by a socialist this cycle,” said Tyson. “He’s got problems with Florida Hispanics but it’ll still be close race here. It’s the nature of our state.”

In at least two South Florida congressional seats, Democrats are as concerned about a Sanders nomination as Republicans are rooting for it. Both Hispanic-heavy districts were won by Democrats in 2018 and now two Republicans are running to unseat them by making socialism a top messaging issue.

After the 60 Minutes interview, Democratic Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell wrote that “As the first South American immigrant member of Congress who proudly represents thousands of Cuban Americans, I find Senator Bernie Sanders’ comments on Castro’s Cuba absolutely unacceptable ... The Castro regime murdered and jailed dissidents, and caused unspeakable harm to too many South Florida families. To this day, it remains an authoritarian regime that oppresses its people, subverts the free press, and stifles a free society.”

Last month, when asked about Sanders’s positions and statements about Latin America, Mucarsel-Powell, who is neutral in the primary, declined to comment.

Democratic Rep. Donna Shalala, who is neutral in the presidential primary, also made it clear that she sees Sanders as a problem if he leads the party ticket.

“A Sanders nomination would make it more difficult to win Florida,” said Shalala. “Could I still win with a Sanders nomination? Yes. Would it make it more complicated? Yes ... The majority of voters in the district are not socialist, whether they’re Latino or they’re white.”

Rep. Ted Deutch, another South Florida Democrat, has endorsed Bloomberg. He said Sanders will struggle with Jewish voters in Florida.

“It’s not just socialism. When it comes to Israel, a lot of people are really uncomfortable with the thought of using critical assistance to Israel as some sort of bargaining chip, some withholding aid as a threat to Israel,” Deutch said. “For a candidate who runs in Florida and talks to the pro-Israel community, when they hear a candidate saying maybe we ought to ... withhold aid to Israel to make some sort of political statement, that’s something that’s going to concern a lot of people.”

Sanders has already drawn fire in Iowa and Nevada from a political group called Democratic Majority for Israel, and it’s eyeing Florida as well. The group’s strategist, prominent Democratic pollster Mark Mellman, wouldn’t discuss strategy but pointed out that Sanders got some of the smallest support among Jewish Democratic voters in a Pew poll last month. A new Siena College poll showed Trump doing better among Jewish New Yorkers than Sanders, who was born in Brooklyn to a Jewish family.

As he has with discussing socialism, Sanders points out there’s a nuance in his position on Israel. At a Nevada town hall Tuesday, he said he opposes the government there, not the nation.

“To be for the Israeli people and to be for peace in the Middle East does not mean that we have to support right-wing, racist governments that currently exist in Israel,” Sanders said, winning loud applause from the audience.

Sanders’s adviser, Weaver, said Jewish voters will be attracted to Sanders as a historical figure.

“We would hope that they would want to come out and see the first Jewish president elected in the United States of America,” Weaver said, adding that voters of all kinds will reject the “smears” that Sanders is anti-Israel or a property-seizing communist.

“People aren’t going to fall for this,” he said. “It’s red-baiting.”

But to Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy, who represents a Central Florida battleground district, Sanders’s comments are “ill-informed & insulting to thousands of Floridians. Castro was a murderous dictator who oppressed his own people. His ‘literacy program’ wasn’t altruistic; it was a cynical effort to spread his dangerous philosophy & consolidate power.”

“Whether the subject is Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Israel or other foreign policy challenges,” Murphy, who backs Bloomberg, wrote on Twitter, “@SenSanders has consistently taken positions that are wrong on the merits and will alienate many Florida voters now and in the general election if he is nominated.”