The Donald Trump campaign is targeting Hispanic voters in pivotal Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, making the case in a new ad buy that President Biden has let them down — and the presumptive Republican nominee wouldn’t if returned to the White House.
The 30-second spot, per the Trump camp, will “air on Univision during the Copa Semi-Finals and Finals, both Nationally and locally in Phoenix, Tucson, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Reno, Raleigh and Philadelphia.”
Over pensive piano music, the ad begins with images of a clueless-looking Biden interspersed with shots of Hispanic people struggling with bills, contemplating high gas prices and surveying increasingly tough conditions under the current administration.
“We are proud Americans. And we believe in the American Dream. But under Biden it’s difficult. Biden’s inflation has increased the cost of food. The cost of gas is too high. And our income has decreased. Biden has failed us, President Trump won’t,” the narrator says in Spanish.
The soundtrack moves into a more optimistic major key mode, offering the former president as a contrast to the man now in the Oval Office.
“Trump lowered taxes, increased our income, made housing affordable,” the narrator states in Spanish. “And he will do it again.”
The Copa America buy’s timing is interesting. The spot doesn’t air in Florida itself, but Trump’s Tuesday rally in Doral will, if history is any indication, showcase the former president’s support among Miami-area Hispanics — a group that’s swung from reliably Democratic to in play for Republicans since his 2016 campaign.
“Despacito Biden has taken minority communities for granted for far too long, and Hispanic American voters know that crooked Joe has failed us over and over again,” said Trump campaign senior adviser Danielle Alvarez.
“President Trump made the American Dream achievable for all Americans once and he will do it again when we elect him as the next President of the United States.”
The Trump campaign is confident in its ability to cut into Democratic support from Hispanic communities, which contain more than 36 million voters and nearly 15% of the electorate, according to the Pew Research Center. Hispanics represent roughly half the new voters this cycle, Pew adds.
“Biden’s approval rating has tanked among Hispanic voters. 63% of Hispanic Americans believe the country is on the wrong track and over 60% disapprove of Biden’s leadership,” the campaign noted, pointing to a recent New York Times/Siena College poll.
Reuters reported in December that Trump was neck-and-neck with Biden in Hispanic support.
Statewide polling shows a similar trend, with Trump making inroads with Hispanics in places like Arizona.
A CBS News/YouGov poll of likely voters conducted in May, for example, found Biden and Trump evenly split with 49% each among Hispanics at least “leaning” to a candidate. The survey also showed 40% of Hispanic voters agree that “recent immigrants have made life in Arizona worse” and 42% say they’ve made it better; 58% consider the United States-Mexico border a “major factor” in who they will choose to vote for.
To put that trend in perspective, a CBS News 2020 exit poll in Arizona determined that 61% of those identifying as Hispanic/Latino voted for Biden, compared with 37% for Trump.
Meanwhile, Emerson College polling sponsored by Democrats for the Next Generation, as The Post reported, shows Biden behind Trump with all voters in battleground Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin and Nevada.
In that context, Trump’s tactical appeal to the growing Hispanic-voter cohort suggests his campaign believes the key to the swing states, in no small part, is appealing to these voters on issues that resonate most — their pocketbooks and bank balances — and arguing they’re worse off than they were four years ago.