Nevada seemingly slips away despite Biden’s courting of Black, Latino voters
The president’s abbreviated campaign swing to court Black and Latino voters came as many Democrats agitate for him to bow out of the race.
LAS VEGAS — President Joe Biden, clinging to the nomination and surrounding himself with prominent Black and Latino leaders, made a hastily shortened return to the campaign trail with a two-day swing through Nevada, a once-promising battleground state that Democrats fear could be slipping away from them.
Before it was curtailed by his Covid diagnosis, Biden’s Nevada trip was designed to sharpen his message after weeks of trying to hold off restive Democrats in Washington who are agitating for him to bow out of the race. It focused on appealing to traditional gatekeepers in the Black and Hispanic communities whose leaders have stood with the president even as voters from those groups have been shifting to the right at a faster rate than others, powering former President Donald Trump’s leads in Sun Belt states like Nevada.
And Biden’s Western swing — an effort by the White House to counterprogram the Republican convention — came amid warnings from Nevada Democrats that the president’s campaign risked being further drowned out in the state by deepening concerns over a sputtering economy, low wages and the high cost of housing.
The president tried to project a show of force as he joined leaders of the influential congressional Black and Hispanic caucuses, shuffling between venues and delivering energetic speeches, mostly relying on a teleprompter. Biden aides and allies contend they are building on established infrastructure to turn out voters in a state that no Republican presidential candidate has carried since 2004.