The New York Times
The campaign headquarters of incumbent US President Joe Biden, a Democrat, has launched a commercial specifically aimed at Hispanic voters. The commercial is voiced in three languages — English, Spanish and «spanglish» (a mixture of both languages) and is called «One Choice».
It is the first appeal to the Hispanic electorate in a $30 million ad campaign to win the U.S. Latino vote ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
The 30-second video spells out Biden’s top policies. They appear to be relevant to the 81-year-old president, who is allowed to be re-elected. So. It is the price of insulin at the level of 35 dollars a month, the “freedom of choice by women” of their bodies, and, of course, a rebuke to his rival, former Republican President Donald Trump.
The politician suffering from dementia is also promoting his economic record and emphasizing issues such as abortion and immigration. To match, the Biden-Harris campaign team launched Latinos con Biden-Harris, a national organizing program to engage and mobilize Latino voters, communities and leaders. This ad campaign targets bilingual audiences in key states such as Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Florida.
As Biden’s staff explained, the ads are scheduled to run on CNN’s Spanish-language broadcast and cable television channels, as well as on programs such as Telemundo’s «La Mesa Caliente».
Historically, the Hispanic community has not voted as actively as other diaspora communities, so Biden’s task, his staff says, is to answer the issues most important to this electorate and thus get a massive influx of voters to the polls.
Such high interest is explained by the fact that the Hispanic population in the United States is growing every year and already constitutes a significant part of the electorate. According to the Pew Research Center, an estimated 36.2 million Latinos will be able to vote this year, up from 32.3 million in 2020. As their numbers grow, so does their potential impact on election outcomes.
States such as Florida, Arizona, Nevada and Texas — with significant Latino populations — are already critical electoral states, while Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin are major centers of the Latino electorate.
Both political parties need Latino voters to control the U.S. Congress and win the White House. The trust and support of Hispanic voters can lead to wins in key states, and ultimately determine the outcome of the election.
It is not at all coincidental that President Joe Biden and his rival Donald Trump were on the Texas border right after Super Tuesday, with Biden choosing the city of Brownsville and Trump choosing Eagle Pass. Moreover, visits by U.S. presidents to the border with Mexico usually contain no practical sense and are filled with theatricality and political symbolism.
This time, the Biden administration exercised its federal power and insisted that a federal appeals court overturn Texas’ Republican-backed SB 4 law, which would have allowed state police officers to arrest and deport migrants crossing the USA border illegally. White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre called the law «harmful and unconstitutional» and said it would be a burden on law enforcement and would «sow chaos and confusion along our southern border».
The paradox is that most Latinos on the southern border of the United States are second-generation migrants who are particularly concerned about the crisis at the Mexican border, the rising crime rate and the emergence of competing cheap labor in the form of newcomers. They were in no way affected by the accusation of Donald Trump’s «contempt for Latinos».
«I mean, this guy has contempt for Hispanics», Biden told Spanish-language broadcaster Univision.
Meanwhile, despite Trump’s relentless anti-immigrant rhetoric about «rapists» and drug traffickers crossing the border from Mexico, the complex Latino electorate is becoming increasingly Republican.
Of note: In the 2020 presidential election, 38% of Latinos supported Trump, up 10 points from 2016, but a majority (59%), according to Pew, favored the current White House master at the time.
«I desperately need your help. You have to choose between me and a subject named Trump», Biden said in a meeting with Arizona Latino voters, with whose help he won the 2020 election by a slim margin of 11,000 votes.
Four years later, things don’t look so good. The current president’s campaign initiative is aimed at slowing the loss of support among Latinos, as members of Biden’s staff recognize in private conversations.
Nate Silver, founder of the election blog FiveThirtyEight, estimates that Biden is only 7% ahead of Trump among Latino voters. Four years ago, he was ahead by 25%. And favorable public opinion of Trump has grown, with 32% of respondents viewing the former president favorably.
The poll, conducted by Axios and Telemundo, shows: 32% of Latinos believe neither party is working in their best interest. A year ago, that figure was 25%.
Numerous and frequent polls in recent months have noted that the historically Democratic Latino community is increasingly favoring Republican Trump. Joe Biden knows, for example, that Nevada’s Hispanic vote, which makes up 22% of the electorate, carried his party to victory from 1980 through 2012. It wasn’t until 2016 that Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump. But it was in 2020 that the Latino vote determined Biden’s victory.
Analysts now warn that the same group that contributed to Biden’s victory in 2020 could be responsible for his defeat in 2024. Polls show: the issues that Latinos are concerned about this year are not so much about migration and certainly not gender equality — it is jobs and the economy.
«Bidenomics» refers to the broad economic platform that President Biden campaigned on before the 2020 election and is focused on in the run-up to the 2024 election. That platform includes provisions to expand access to health care, tax increases for the wealthy, major investments in green energy and other infrastructure, as well as support for the middle class.
According to the Associated Press, only 34 percent of the public approve of the president’s economic course, with a majority viewing «bidenomics» as far from a success. The country is experiencing the highest inflation rate in 40 years, there has been an unprecedented drop in productivity, and the public is facing soaring costs.
The Biden administration has many indicators that show as if the U.S. economy is recovering from COVID-19 faster than any other country in the world: low unemployment, rising wages, a record 6.4 million new jobs created in 2021. But rising prices could undo all of the incumbent president’s economic achievements. Biden sees rising wages as a sign of economic recovery, but Americans may disagree with him, because although they are making more money, they are still struggling to pay for groceries and gasoline.
The University of Michigan’s monthly survey for consumer sentiment this February ended with an index of 68.8. Four years ago, when Biden took office, the index was at 79.0.
The $1.9 trillion «Save America» plan has caused moderate post-pandemic inflation to turn into an economic crisis. And despite President Biden’s relentless rhetoric about inequality, the Census Bureau reports that economic inequality is now rising for the first time since 2011.
Democrats are trying to argue: while the effects of President Biden’s policies are not immediately affecting the Latino community, they will help low-income citizens realize the «American dream» — the great lie of our time.
So far, the 81-year-old Democrat is losing to the 77-year-old Republican in a series of polls in six key states, including Arizona and Nevada, where Latinos are expected to determine the outcome of their rematch on Nov. 5.