One of the highest viewership men’s soccer tournaments in the world, the Copa América, kicked off on Thursday and the Biden campaign is seizing the opportunity engage and mobilize Latino voters in the US
The Biden-Harris reelection team will host viewing parties for the football games with campaign surrogates, hand out Biden football jerseys and place advertisements across the country during the roughly monthlong duration of the tournament.
Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Biden-Harris 2024 campaign manager, said in a statement that the campaign wants to “harness the energy of the Copa to mobilize and reach the Latino voters who will decide this election in their communities, on the air and on the Copa. matches.”
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In line with Thursday’s opening match in Atlanta between Lionel Messi’s Argentina and Canada, the Biden campaign unveiled its 30-second spot “Goaalll!” which will run on television, radio and digital platforms in the English and Spanish markets. The ad references the 2021 Copa América tournament – which was postponed a year from the summer of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic – in an attempt to contrast Mr Biden’s record with the administration of former President Donald Trump .
“We closed four years ago,” the ad’s narrator says over images of empty chairs. “Stadiums were empty, Trump let us down, but then Joe Biden took over. He reopened the country and got us back on track.”
A red football card is placed over Trump’s face as the narrator says, “Trump talks and talks and Biden gets s— finished.”
In response to the ad push, Jaime Florez, the Trump campaign’s Hispanic spokesperson, told CBS News in a statement Thursday that “no matter how much money the Biden campaign will spend to attract the attention of Latin American voters, they won’t.” Hispanics are very concerned about inflation, the prices of everything constantly rising, the insecurity of our neighborhoods, and with the crisis at the border, it is a waste of time and money.”
In June, Trump’s team launched its ‘Latino Americans for Trump’ campaign as part of its mobilization efforts to reach the more than 36.2 million eligible Latino voters across the U.S. The campaign aims to show Latino voters “that the American dream is alive and attainable, and how the great achievements they have enjoyed during recent years of Republican leadership will soon return,” Florez said.
In 2020, Mr. Biden won Arizona by fewer than 11,000 votes, as was the case in Georgia. Biden defeated Nevada by fewer than 33,000 votes.
By 2024, one in four voters in Arizona will be Latino, according to figures from the Pew Research Center, while in Nevada it will be one in five. These are states where the winner of this year’s general election will be decided on the margins, and Latinos will play a crucial role in determining the outcome.
More than ten Copa América matches are scheduled in states such as Nevada, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina. These are key locations that the Biden campaign says it will take advantage of.
