Harris courts Latino voters as Obama tries to mobilize African Americans

Kamala Harris is fighting to win the Latino vote in the presidential election. On Tuesday, the Democratic candidate participated in a town hall event with voters organized by the Spanish-language network Univisión in Las Vegas (Nevada), in a week in which she has launched a media blitz to reach voters. Meanwhile, former Democratic president Barack Obama on Wednesday began a tour of the decisive states to ask voters to back Harris, and he did so with a rally in Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania). One of the goals he has set himself is to mobilize the vote of African American men, whose support for the vice president seems to be faltering.

In Las Vegas, Harris took questions from the audience, made up of around 100 Latinos not only from Nevada but also from other decisive states, who sat in a semicircle around the stage. Some of them exposed their personal problems, and Harris tried to show empathy again and again, interacting with the voters microphone in hand, sometimes approaching them to answer or even to take their hands.

The question that left the candidate most confused was the final one. She was asked to say three good things about her Republican rival. After stressing that he is a divisive person, she finally came up with something: “I think Donald Trump loves his family, and I think that is very important,” she said. Then she excused herself: “I don’t really know him. To be honest, I only saw him once on the debate stage. I had never seen him before, so I don’t have much more to offer you.” Trump will have his turn on Saturday in Florida at another Univisión forum, which was postponed due to the arrival of Hurricane Milton.

Dozens of supporters were waiting for the vice president at the University of Nevada, where the forum took place. They held a large banner reading “Vamos (Let’s go)!” and carried signs bearing Harris’ campaign slogans. A Trump supporter riding an electric cart for disabled people challenged them with his own signs in favor of the Republican and against the Democrat. The program was recorded after midday to be broadcast hours later, at 10 p.m. on the East Coast.

Harris was asked what it was like to replace President Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket. She is the first candidate since 1968 not to receive a single vote in the primaries. She acknowledged that it was an “unprecedented” process. “President Biden made a decision that I think history will show was probably one of the most courageous that a president could make, which is he decided to put country above his personal interest,” she said.

She also noted that “the stakes right now are extraordinarily high, and potentially, some might say, historians have said unprecedented.” Polls show that the state of democracy is one of the issues that most concerns voters, but Harris had so far insisted on it less than Biden. This time, however, she remarked that “we are literally having a choice as the American people about choosing a path either that is about rule of law, democracy, or something that is about admiring dictators.”

The Democrat argued for a comprehensive reform of the United States’ “broken immigration system” in response to a question from a citizen whose mother was never able to regularize her status in the country and who died a few weeks ago without receiving adequate healthcare. Harris said: “You have to remember her as she lived, not as she died.” In another question related to health coverage, she said that the U.S. has to make sure that someone who gets an acute illness doesn’t lose everything.

Harris has advocated for abortion rights and has promised to fight inflation. Price increases appear to be behind the fact that polls show the vice president has the lowest support among the Latino community for the Democratic nomination in all recent elections.

Obama begins tour

While Harris is campaigning in the West (from Nevada she has gone to Arizona, another key state that also has a large Latino community), Obama has begun a tour in Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) in support of the Democratic candidate in the decisive states. Wearing a blue shirt, his sleeves rolled up, and armed with his oratorical skills, the former president gave an impassioned speech in support of the vice president and also of Senator Bob Casey, who is running for an important seat in that state. The “yes we can” of his 2008 campaign has been transformed into a “yes, she can.”

Obama appealed in particular to African American men, who, along with young people, seem less mobilized than when they paved the way for him to the White House. “My understanding, based on reports I’m getting from campaigns and communities, is that we have not yet seen the same kinds of energy and turnout in all quarters of our neighborhoods and communities as we saw when I was running,” he said. “You’re thinking about sitting out or supporting somebody who has a history of denigrating you, because you think that’s a sign of strength, because that’s what being a man is? Putting women down? That’s not acceptable.”

The first Black president in U.S. history has called on African Americans to mobilize in support of Harris, the daughter of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father. “On the one hand, you have somebody who grew up like you, knows you, went to college with you, understands the struggles and pain and joy that comes from those experiences. And on the other side, you have someone who has consistently shown disregard, not just for the communities, but for you as a person.”

Obama structured his rally as a permanent contrast between the two candidates, and while he acknowledged the problems, he passionately urged people to vote for Harris. “I get it, why people are looking to shake things up. I mean, I am the hopey-changey guy. So I understand people feeling frustrated and feeling we can do better. What I cannot understand is why anybody would think that Donald Trump will shake things up in a way that is good for you, Pennsylvania.”

The former president portrayed Trump as a “78-year-old bumbling billionaire,” he said, “who has not stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator nine years ago.” Obama also discussed Trump’s “crazy conspiracy theories” and compared his “two-hour speeches” to those of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

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