Biden, looking to shore up Hispanic support, faces pressure to get 2024 outreach details right
President Joe Biden’s small but notable past missteps when courting Hispanic voters have some activists worried that his reelection campaign won’t get crucial details right ahead of the 2024 election
KISSIMMEE, Fla. (AP) — Joe Biden vowed in 2020 to work “like the devil" 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, “I just have one thing to say" and used his phone to play part of “Despacito."
Biden is hardly the first politician to strike a sour note trying to connect across cultural lines, but the blowback he encountered illustrates a bigger challenge facing the president and his party as he seeks a second term next year.
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 are adding to the sense that Democrats have work to do to maintain their advantage.
