The Biden Bunch has launched a new advertising campaign, "Latinos con Biden-Harris," to persuade the disgruntled Hispanic voting bloc to steer clear of conservative policies and embrace the current regime. President Joe Biden wants to "finish the job" he started in 2021, and it appears he may be the only one on board as he trails his GOP opponent by more than 5% and continues to lose ground in real-time. What happened in three years that prompted the largest growing demographic in the United States to collectively say, "Si, no gracias"?
Perhaps it's not that former President Donald Trump is attracting major Latino support for his MAGA movement so much as they don't appreciate what Biden has done in three short years - benefits like rampant inflation, job insecurity, small businesses shuttering, and, yes, allowing unchecked illegal migration through the US-Mexico border.
Cross Pressure
Florida International University (FIU) and the marketing firm Adsmovil released the scariest survey results for the folks of a progressive bent. The poll was more centered than the national questionnaires showing Hispanics leaning toward the GOP or becoming card-carrying independents. Instead of the random crosstab section of the demographic, FIU used a pure sample of 1,221 Latino voters for the entirety of the questionnaire. The results showed that 20% of respondents had been mulling over a party switch, with a plurality heading to the GOP and others feeling the pull of independent status.
"For Latinos, it is the economy," said Mark Lopez of Pew Research Center. "Things are not going as well for them as hoped, and maybe they are linking that to the president."
However, in border states, there is a different sense of why some are abandoning the Democratic Party - or Joe Biden in particular. "I think a lot of immigrants, specifically in the Hispanic community, are very much pro-business, pro-entrepreneurship, and they're not, you know, into the rhetoric about eating the rich or taxing the rich more," said Carlos Alfaro, a Hispanic immigrant and policy advocate in Arizona. "When it comes to first- and second-generation voters, I still think that that kind of language is pushing people away because they know someone that is in business, or they are in business."
Hispanic Mad Love for Trump?
The largest advantage that Trump has is momentum. His campaign is full of energy and not the vitriol of a screaming, angry president who is losing in the polls to his predecessor. That's as embarrassing as it gets for a lot of voters who look for a robust, strong, and mentally fit (as one can be and still want the job) candidate to back. But the disillusion of black and Hispanic folks with Biden doesn't mean a party switcheroo is underway. Current statistics show that Trump is holding steady with the black bloc at around 12%, which hasn't significantly expanded since 2020.
Of course, there is a third-party threat skulking about, ready to throw the biggest October surprise party to date: RFK Jr., Jill Stein, and even Cornel West will all take voters from the Democratic Party. So where does that leave Biden's public enemy number one?
"Although Trump hasn't grown support among black voters, he has closed the deficit because third-party voters come off of Biden's support among blacks," said David Paleologos, director of Suffolk's Political Research Center. "A young voter or a person of color voting 'third party' is a vote away from President Biden, and a vote away from President Biden is a vote for Donald Trump."
Wooing the Hispanic Vote
Candidates say and do all sorts of stupid things when pandering to a demographic. In 2016, Hillary Clinton claimed she carried hot sauce in her purse wherever she went. To attract more city voters, she called half the electorate "deplorables." The Biden family has surpassed her missteps by a long shot. Back in 2008, Joe said his now-former boss, Barack Obama, cleaned up well. He lauded "some black woman" who kept him in spaghetti sauce in Delaware and he made sure Americans knew that people from India worked in a lot of convenience stores. His wife Jill chimed in to declare that Mexican-Americans in Texas were as diverse as breakfast tacos. Let's just say this quirky kind of strategy almost always backfires.
What attracts the Hispanic voter - and every other demographic, for that matter - is a strong economy, lower taxes, and security. These issues have crystallized in this presidential election. Now, all there is to do is figure out which guy or gal can pull it off.
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