Harris tops Biden campaign’s Latino outreach amid swing state slide

Vice President Kamala Harris is upping her efforts to connect with Latino voters heading into 2024 as President Joe Biden‘s reelection push has stalled in a number of critical battleground states.

For months, the Biden-Harris campaign has put a premium on courting Latino voters, the fastest-growing voter demographic in the country, including spending millions on television, radio, and digital ads and maximizing their grassroots networks in areas hosting Republican presidential primary debates.

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However, Biden is currently trailing former President Donald Trump both nationally and in five of six swing states that were critical in deciding the 2020 general election. And Republicans themselves have made a concerted effort to bring Latino voters to the GOP in recent years, though the fruits of those labors largely failed to materialize in the 2022 midterm elections outside of Florida.

Still, a poll conducted over the summer by Axios and Ipsos found that while more Latinos favor the Democratic Party (30%) over the Republican Party (11%), nearly one-third of the demographic (32%) believes that “neither” party has their best interests at heart.

On Monday, Harris began a week of high-profile engagements focusing on Latinos when she took part in a “moderated conversation” in Houston, Texas, with Reps. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX) and Nanette Barragan (D-CA), the chairwoman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Harris also attended a campaign fundraiser with Garcia and Barragan later that evening, and she’ll host a reception for Congressional Hispanic Caucus members at the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.

During Monday’s conversation, part of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’s “On the Road” series, Harris sought to sell her and Biden’s legislative accomplishments over the past three years, making note of the White House’s commitment to a 50% increase in federal contracts for minority-owned small businesses. The Biden administration has also allocated more than $12 billion to expand lending access for minority entrepreneurs.

Harris also sounded the alarm on the “intentional full-on attack” on civil liberties a second Trump term could present. She specifically pointed to voting and abortion rights coming under attack in Republican-led states.

“We are living in a moment where there is a full-on attack on our freedoms and rights,” she claimed. “We’re going to have to build a coalition, and we’re going to have to remember that these are the things that make us strong as a nation and this is a time for us to recommit ourselves.”

“The idea that after someone has survived a crime of violence to their body, a violation of their body, that they would be told, ‘And you have no right to make a decision about what happens to your body next’ — it’s immoral,” Harris added, referring to abortion access.

The Biden campaign has also sought to shore up support for the president among young Latino voters, something Harris reiterated Monday.

“I love Gen Z,” she declared. “What I have found and learned is that they, on each and every one of these issues, are not going to be satisfied until things are done.”

Earlier this month, Harris participated in a similar event in Florida. Rapper Fat Joe and singer Anthony Ramos also joined that conversation.

Still, Harris, whom Biden previously tapped to serve as the administration’s point person for migration at the southern border, has drawn consistent criticism over the past two years specifically relating to the Biden administration’s immigration policies.

Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), the Hispanic Leadership Trust, and a group of Latino GOP lawmakers held their own fundraiser in Houston on Monday.

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Former Texas Rep. Mayra Flores, one of the Republicans taking part in the HLT fundraiser, attacked Harris in a statement for failing to adequately address the migration crisis.

“Kamala Harris coming to Houston while continuing to ignore the crisis at our southern border is a slap in the face to every Texan, every American, and every Hispanic American in this country,” Flores said. “Hispanic Americans are flocking toward the Republican Party because we have the solutions to solve the issues at the border, the gas pump, the grocery store and everywhere in between.”