Kamala Harris fights to win the Latino vote in the United States presidential elections. This Tuesday, the Democratic candidate participated in a forum with voters organized by Univision in Las Vegas (Nevada), within a week in which she has undertaken a media offensive to reach voters. In parallel, former Democratic President Barack Obama began a tour of the decisive states with a rally in Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) this Wednesday to ask for a vote for Harris. One of the objectives that has been set is to mobilize the vote of black men, whose support for the vice president seems to be weakening.
In Las Vegas, the format was questions from the attendees, a hundred Latinos not only from Nevada, but also from other decisive states, sitting in a semicircle around the stage. Some of them have exposed their personal problems and Harris has tried to show empathy time and time again, interacting with voters with microphone in hand, approaching them on occasion to answer or even to hold their hands.
The question that left the candidate most confused was the last one. They asked him to say three good things about his rival and it was difficult for him. After emphasizing that he is a divisive person, something has finally occurred to him: “I think Donald Trump loves his family, and I think that is very important,” he said. Then he excused himself: “I don’t really know him. To be honest, I only saw him once on the debate stage. “I’ve never seen him before, so I don’t have much else to offer you.” Trump will have his turn this Saturday in Florida at another Univision forum, which was postponed as a result of 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 that read: “Let’s go!” and they carried signs with their campaign slogans. A Trump supporter riding an electric cart for people with disabilities challenged them with his own signs in favor of the Republican and against the Democrat. The program was recorded after noon to be broadcast hours later, at 10:00 p.m. on the East Coast of the United States (six hours more in mainland Spain).
Harris has been asked how she replaced the president, Joe Biden, on the Democratic ticket. She is the first candidate since 1968 who has not received a single vote in the primaries. She has acknowledged that it was an “unprecedented” process. “President Biden made a decision that I think history will show is probably one of the bravest a president can make: He decided to put the country above his personal interests. And he made that decision very within that same period of time, supported my candidacy and urged me to run. And I feel honored to have achieved the Democratic nomination,” she explained.
He also noted that “this is an extraordinary moment.” “It is literally about whether we support democracy and the Constitution of the United States,” he said. Polls show that the state of democracy is one of the issues that most concern voters, but Harris has insisted on it less so far than Biden did. This time he has charged: “The American people literally have to choose between a path based on the rule of law and democracy or one based on admiration for dictators.”
The Democrat has defended a comprehensive immigration reform in the United States when asked by a citizen whose mother was never able to regularize her situation in the country and who died a few weeks ago without receiving adequate health care, according to what she said. “You must remember her how she lived, not how she died,” he said. Harris spoke of the “suffering” caused by the “broken immigration system” that is a result, she said, of people like Trump who “prefer to campaign using a problem instead of solving the problem.” ”My mother came to the United States when she was 19 years old. I was alone. She came alone. She raised me and my sister Maya, and I know what it’s like to have a working mother who loves you and to lose that. But I know his spirit is alive. I know his spirit is alive. Tell me his name and let’s say his name,” he added.
In another question related to health coverage, he noted: “We have to make sure that someone who contracts an acute illness does not lose everything.”
Harris has advocated for abortion rights and has assured that she will fight inflation. “I know that prices are still too high and we have to face it. I come from the working class. “I will never forget where I come from,” he answered a question on the subject. The price increases seem to be behind the fact that polls show Harris the lowest support among the Latino community for the Democratic candidacy of all the last elections.
Obama begins a tour
While Harris campaigns in the West (from Nevada she has gone to Arizona, another key state, also with a high weight of the Latin community), Obama has begun a tour in Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) in support of the Democratic candidate through the States. decisive. With a blue shirt rolled up and armed with his oratory skills, the former president gave a passionate speech in support of the vice president and also Senator Bob Casey, who is vying to win an important seat in that state. The “yes we can” [sí se puede] of his 2008 campaign has been transformed into “yes, she can” [sí, ella puede].
Obama has appealed especially to black men, who, along with young people, seem less mobilized than when they opened the way for him to the White House. “My opinion, based on the reports I am receiving from the campaigns and communities, is that we have not yet seen the same type of energy and participation in all of our neighborhoods and communities that we saw when I was a candidate,” he said, noting that this lack of enthusiasm “seems to be more pronounced with siblings.”
The first black president in the history of the United States has asked African Americans to mobilize to support Kamala, the daughter of an Indian and an African American. “On the one hand, you have someone who grew up like you, knows you, went to college with you, understands the struggles and the pain and the joy that come from that experience,” Obama has said. On the other, there is Trump who, as he has said, “has systematically shown contempt, not only for communities,” but for African Americans as people. “And you’re thinking about sitting still?”
Obama has structured his rally as a permanent contrast between the two candidates and, although he has admitted the existing problems, he has passionately asked to vote for Harris. “I understand why people want to change things. I mean, I’m the hope and change guy. So I understand that people feel frustrated and think we can do better. What I can’t understand is why anyone would think that Donald Trump is going to shake things up in a way that is good for you, Pennsylvania.”
The former president has portrayed Trump as a “78-year-old bumbling billionaire,” he said, “who hasn’t stopped complaining about his problems since he came down his golden escalator nine years ago.” He has compared his “crazy conspiracy theories” and “two-hour speeches” to those of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.
