President Joe Biden\u2019s small but notable past missteps when courting Hispanic voters have some activists worried that his reelection campaign won\u2019t get crucial details right ahead of the 2024 election<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Joe Biden vowed in 2020 to work \u201clike the devil\u201d to energize Hispanic voters, and flew to Florida seven weeks before Election Day to do just that. But, as he stepped to the podium at a Hispanic Heritage Month event near Disney World, Biden declared, \u201cI just have one thing to say\u201d and used his phone to play part of \u201cDespacito.\u201d
It was meant to salute the singer of the reggaeton hit, Luis Fonsi, who had introduced Biden. Still, the gesture triggered online backlash from some Hispanics who saw it as playing to belittling stereotypes \u2014 proof that while outreach is important, failing to strike the right tone can undermine it.
\u201cThe details actually matter for people because it\u2019s respecting their background, respecting their history, respecting their culture,\u201d said Grecia Lima, national political director of the progressive activist group Community Change Action.
President Biden isn’t the first politician to strike a sour note trying to connect across cultural lines. But the blowback he encountered illustrates a bigger challenge he faces while seeking a second term.
Hispanic voters, long a core constituency for Democrats, have reliably supported them based on substantive matters of policy, from health care to managing the economy, according to Pew Research Center surveys. But recent signs that Republicans have made inroads with those voters is adding to the sense that Democrats must work to maintain their advantage.
Democratic candidates won 57% of Hispanic voters during last year\u2019s midterms, a smaller percentage than the 63% of Hispanic voters Biden won in 2020 and the 66% of Hispanic voters supporting the party in 2018, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of the national electorate.
Meanwhile, 39% of Hispanic voters backed Republicans last year, a tick up from the 35% who supported former President Donald Trump\u2019s reelection bid.
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, a Republican considering a White House run, said Democrats have hurt themselves by adopting terms like Latinx, a gender-neutral alternative to \u201cLatino\u201d and \u201cLatina.\u201d
\u201cThey\u2019ve created a tremendous opportunity for Republicans,\u201d Suarez said.
Democrats believed harsh rhetoric from Republicans during and after the presidency of Trump \u2014 who in his campaign launch in 2015 declared immigrants from Mexico to be rapists and criminals \u2014 would give them a boost. Instead, even modest swings toward the GOP could mean millions more Republican votes next year. Hispanics made up 62% of total growth in the nation\u2019s eligible voters between 2018 and last year’s election, according to Pew.
\u201cAre they behind?\u201d asked Javier Palomarez CEO of the United States Hispanic Business Council. \u201cYes.\u201d
Democratic strategist Maria Cardona said nearly every cycle features \u201cactivists with their hair on fire: \u2018The campaign\u2019s not doing enough, we\u2019re not hearing from enough people.\u2018\u201d She said Biden\u2019s campaign is neutralizing those perceptions with \u201chistoric strides and investments\u201d in Hispanic voter mobilization.
Biden supporters also say substantive issues, rather than incidents like playing \u201cDespacito,\u201d are what resonates with Hispanic voters.
\u201cPresident Biden has spent his first two years in office focusing on the issues facing many Latino families \u2014 lowering health care costs, creating good-paying jobs, getting our small businesses and schools reopened, and fighting gun violence in our communities,\u201d Kevin Munoz, a spokesperson for Biden\u2019s reelection campaign, said in a statement.
Still, \u201cDespacito\u201d wasn\u2019t the Biden camp\u2019s only misstep.
First lady Jill Biden flubbed pronouncing the rallying cry \u201cSi Se Puede,\u201d during a speech in California last spring. Then, in Texas last summer, she said the Hispanic community was as \u201cunique as breakfast tacos here in San Antonio,” prompting another backlash and an apology from the first lady\u2019s office.
Matt Barreto, who does polling for the White House and the Democratic National Committee, said Hispanic outreach programs have intensified.
\u201cWe\u2019ve been learning our lessons, and constantly improving,\u201d he said.
Democrats were hindered in 2020 by the pandemic limiting on-the-ground organizing. But those efforts resumed in 2022, when Democrats nonetheless lost key House races in some heavily Hispanic areas.
The shift toward Republicans was particularly pronounced in Florida, where over half of Hispanic voters backed Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, now a candidate for president.
In Florida\u2019s Broward County, still a Democratic stronghold, Richard Ramunno, a 31-year-old business owner of Argentine and Chilean background, remembered Biden\u2019s \u201cDespacito\u201d episode but laughed it off. He said he worries more about policy decisions Republicans are making at the state level, including the Parental Rights in Education law signed by DeSantis, which makes it easier to challenge a book over its content.
\u201cThe laws they are passing are very conservative right now,\u201d he said. \u201cBooks are being removed from schools.\u201d
Melissa Morales, founder of Somos PAC, which supported last year’s reelection of Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, the first Latina elected to the Senate, said the midterms showed the importance of economic policies like affordable housing and healthcare \u2014 not GOP-led culture war issues.
\u201cThe thing that really emerged for us in 2022 was that Latinos were so solutions-oriented,\u201d Morales said.
Lima, of Community Change Action, said the economy is a top motivator for Hispanic voters, and that Biden can point to a major public works package and increased federal spending on health care, social services and green energy.
But she called those \u201cdown payments\u201d and said Hispanic voters will expect Democrats \u201cto make good\u201d on policies that help the economy work better for them.
Many activists who have criticized Biden and Democrats praised the president for selecting Julie Chavez Rodriguez, granddaughter of civil rights icon Julio Cesar Chavez, to manage his reelection campaign.
In a memo detailing 2024 strategy, which the Biden campaign produced in English and Spanish, Rodriguez promised to \u201cengage early and often\u201d with Hispanic voters. The DNC also plans to build on Adelante, or \u201cForward,\u201d a seven-figure outreach plan that featured bilingual radio and print in nine battleground states last year.
The DNC also is planning to resume \u201cboot camps\u201d to train bilingual campaign staff in key states.
“I believe that now the Democratic Party is in a position where, when I go and tell people, \u2018I want you to do more,\u2019 I have willing partners,\u201d Barreto said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n