By Seung Min Kim -
The Associated Press
President Joe Biden appealed personally to Latino voters Tuesday, saying they are the reason he defeated Donald Trump in 2020 and urging them to help him do it again in November.
“I need you back,” he told several dozen supporters packed into a local Mexican restaurant.
Biden said the upcoming election is not a referendum on him, but rather a choice between “a guy named Trump and me.”
The Democrat highlighted Trump's derogatory rhetoric toward Latinos, from saying during his winning 2016 campaign that many of those who come to the United States from Mexico are rapists to the Republican's more recent claim that immigrants are "poisoning the blood of our country".
President Joe Biden speaks at a campaign event at El Portal restaurant in Phoenix, Arizona, March 19, 2024. Associated Press
Biden said
Hispanic unemployment is the lowest it has been in a long time
because of his policies, highlighted the administration's efforts to help small businesses and reduce gun violence, and criticized Trump for wanting more tax cuts for the wealthy.
“He wants to get rid of all the programs we put together,” Biden said.
Biden's push among Latino voters is part of the campaign's broader efforts to lay the groundwork for re-engaging several congressional districts he will need to be re-elected.
That effort is even more crucial given that key sectors of Biden's base, such as Black and Hispanic adults, are increasingly disenchanted with his performance in office.
[Hispanic evangelicals are “more involved” in the elections: their support for Christian nationalism is worrying]
In an AP-NORC poll conducted in February, 38% of American adults approved of how Biden was handling his job.
Nearly 6 in 10 black adults (58%) passed, compared to 36% of Hispanic adults.
Black adults are more likely than white and Hispanic adults to approve of Biden, but that approval has declined in the three years since Biden took office.
Biden, who is on a three-day campaign tour of Nevada, Arizona and Texas designed largely to court Latino voters, told supporters at an earlier political stop Tuesday in Reno, Nevada, that he and Trump have a “different set of values.”
He also criticized Trump's rhetoric.
“I have never heard a president say the things he has said,” Biden said.
Biden said
Washoe County, where Reno is located, and Nevada, are “very, very, very critical”
for the November election.
Nevada is among a half-dozen battlegrounds that will determine the next president, and Washoe is the state's only undecided county.
“We are going to beat him again
,” Biden said of Trump.
[Trump suggests he would support a national ban on abortion after the first 15 weeks of pregnancy]
Biden later flew to Las Vegas to promote his administration's housing policies.
On Wednesday in Phoenix, he will discuss his support for the computer chip manufacturing sector.
Tuesday's appearances coincided with the release of Latinos con Biden-Harris (Spanish for Latinos con Biden-Harris).
Campaign ads ran in English, Spanish and Spanglish, a mix of the two languages, as did two Spanish-language radio interviews with the president.
“I plan to work like hell to earn your support,” Biden said on
Univision Radio's
El Bueno, la Mala y el Feo .
In the interview, Biden turned questions about immigration into a criticism of Trump for his language about immigrants, most recently saying they are “animals” and not people.
Biden also highlighted Trump's promise to carry out mass deportations.
“
We have to stop this guy
, we can't let this happen,” Biden said.
“We are a nation of immigrants.”
[The Government announces new rules to promote electric vehicles and reduce pollutant emissions]
Biden's reelection campaign, along with allied Democratic groups, has opened offices in Washoe County and specific areas of Las Vegas that aides say will help the campaign with Black, Latino and Asian American voters.
The president said Tuesday that his campaign will open more offices in the state, and Daniel Corona, the campaign's deputy director of political coalitions, said Biden's re-election effort was to hire a political director to focus on the state's rural areas. .
There are already bilingual campaign organizers in Arizona, and the campaign has opened an office in Maryvale, a major Latino community in Phoenix.
The campaign has hired more than 40 employees in Nevada and Arizona.
The Republican National Committee accused Democrats of taking the Hispanic community for granted.
“Republicans will continue to welcome with open arms thousands of Hispanics who are coming to our party, disappointed with Democrats and their policies, and will be fundamental to Republican victories across the country in 2024,” said Jaime Florez, director of Hispanic outreach of the party.
.
Biden campaign officials believe disengaged voters
are starting to pay attention to the reality of a rematch between Biden and Trump
now that they are their parties' presumptive nominees.
They are trying to boost coalition-building efforts in battleground states now that the showdown is set, using the energy that emerged from Biden's State of the Union address this month to boost his campaign.
That includes, for example, ensuring that chapters exist on all college campuses so students have a place to organize and that campaign offices are open and stocked with posters, campaign literature and other materials.
Democrats expect Trump and the GOP to struggle to catch up in key states.
Latinos with Biden-Harris
was formally launched at Biden's stop in Phoenix.
The campaign has similar groups targeting women and college students.
“This is not something you can just defend.
This is something that takes work,” Quentin Fulks, senior deputy campaign manager for the Biden campaign, said in an interview.
“It requires training.
It requires making sure your volunteers and supporters have what they need on the ground.”
Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee laid off dozens of employees after new leaders closely aligned with Trump took power last week.
Among those laid off were people who worked at the party's community centers that helped build relationships with minority groups in some Democratic-leaning areas.
Since then, the committee's new leadership has insisted those centers will remain open.
Still, the Biden campaign and the broader Democratic Party face their own struggles, despite their organizational advantages.
In addition to Biden's weaker job performance numbers, Democrats are seeing less support from key voting blocs come election time: While Biden won 63% of Hispanic voters in 2020, that percentage dropped to 57 % for Democratic candidates in the 2022 midterm elections, according to AP.
VoteCast, a survey of the national electorate.
Biden campaign officials say they are confident that once disillusioned members of Biden's coalition are presented with the contrast between the president's agenda and Trump's plans for a second term, they will ultimately
back the president
.
Biden is scheduled to close the trip with fundraising activities in Dallas and Houston.