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.” The gesture triggered swift online backlash.
By WILL WEISSERT and ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON
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. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, a Republican considering a White House run, said Democrats have failed to connect with Hispanic voters and hurt themselves by adopting terms like Latinx, a gender-neutral alternative to “Latino” and “Latina.”
Yet even modest swings toward Republicans could mean millions more 2024 GOP votes since Hispanics made up 62% of total growth in the nation’s eligible voters between 2018 and last year’s election, according to Pew. And that makes engaging in effective Hispanic outreach critical, activists say.
Biden supporters also say incidents like playing “Despacito” don’t resonate with Hispanic voters who are more interested in concrete policy achievements, especially when leading Republican candidates feed racially charged fear-mongering about immigrants and the U.S.-Mexico border. Matt Barreto, who does polling for the White House and the Democratic National Committee, said some of the shift toward Republicans occurred among those who cited the economy as their chief concern.
Indeed, the shift toward Republicans was particularly pronounced in Florida, where over half of Hispanic voters backed Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is now running for president. He champions hard-line immigration stances that included using state funds to send asylum seekers from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard because, he said, Democrats in northern cities were ignoring problems on the U.S.-Mexico border.
But Ramunno also said Democrats should be doing more to reach out to voters ahead of the 2024 election.
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