After pinning President Joe Biden’s flag in South Carolina this week A direct appeal to black votershis campaign will continue this month with trips to Nevada and Michigan, home to key Democratic caucuses Biden needs to shore up before November.
Advisers say it’s a new phase in the campaign that reflects why Biden feels it’s important Revisit the Democratic nomination calendar — Favoring a more diverse coalition of the party instead of white states like Iowa and New Hampshire, where Republicans started to struggle.
“The message we’re giving to these communities right now is, first, they’re the ones most at risk, and second, Joe Biden has done more for these communities than any other president or any other administration,” Quentin Fulks, Biden’s primary deputy campaign manager, said in an interview. said. “It would be foolish of us not to communicate with them outside the gate.”
However, Biden must also face head-on the biggest political challenges facing his party before expanding his focus to the general election.
Biden may meet with Latino voters in Nevada while also discussing a border funding bill that includes tougher immigration policies. Protested by Spanish leaders. The campaign acknowledges that a delicate approach is required in Michigan because of the state’s large Arab American population. c has beenrit Strong support for Israel.
Fulks said the campaign is prepared to address these and other issues, both directly from Biden during his visits and through surrogates, direct communications and paid advertising.
“The president and our entire team understand that communities across the country and in Michigan are suffering. We cannot take a single voter for granted.”
“Our style is that when people come to us on this issue, the president respects their passion,” he said. Biden addressed the protester for example during his performance in South Carolina.
Nevada’s primary is on February 6, three days after South Carolina’s. Michigan comes up next on the new Democratic calendar, on February 27.
Going forward, the campaign intends to build on its core argument – that Americans’ hard-fought freedoms are at stake in this election. “Freedom” was the first word Biden said in his re-election video in April the topic of Friday’s speech Warning about Donald Trump’s threat to democracy.
“Democracy means having the freedom to speak your mind, to be who you are, to be who you want to be,” Biden said. “But if democracy collapses, we will lose that freedom.”
Vice President Kamala Harris signaled how the campaign will expand the freedom argument to key voting groups during a visit to Atlanta on Tuesday, saying there is “absolute intent to attack basic freedoms and rights,” such as “freedom of information.” the ballot… women making decisions about their own bodies, people’s freedom to love the ones they love openly and proudly, people’s freedom to be safe from gun violence.”
Harris has already stopped by Nevada this year to promote another powerful political coalition — the Culinary Workers union, which represents casino workers and successfully negotiated a new contract.
“Workers’ strength is the backbone of our nation’s strength,” he said there last week.
The Biden campaign has argued that it is as important as immigration, with public polls and its own research showing the economy as the top concern of Latino voters. The focus on gun violence is also a major concern, following the 2017 massacre outside the Mandalay Bay casino in Nevada, the nation’s deadliest mass shooting.
In Michigan, the campaign also focuses on economic freedom and the dignity of work, Fulks said. Biden last year The United Auto Workers joined the picket line because the union was negotiating with the Big Three automakers. The UAW, unlike many of the nation’s largest unions, has not yet endorsed Biden’s campaign there is still work to be done.
The campaign rejected the idea that Biden was targeting these base groups because of his vulnerability. Instead, Fulks said, it’s “a sign of respect” that Democrats are taking a more holistic approach than they have in the past — not just the groups that should be the focus of turnout efforts in the fall, but the groups that should be the targets of persuasion efforts. Day 1.
In 2020, Biden carried both Nevada and Michigan, but by less than 3 percent. Among the states Biden carried, only Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia were closer.