Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign is ramping up efforts to attract Latino voters across battleground states with a health care-focused ad blitz attacking former President Donald Trump, but recent polls shows that Vice President Kamala Harris’s advantage among these voters is significantly smaller than that of President Biden. It was 2020.
Starting Tuesday, Harris will run ads claiming that President Trump will “strip health care away” from millions of Latinos and take money out of their pockets in the process.
However, in contrast to when he ran for office in 2016, Trump has regularly pledged to repeal Obamacare, the nation’s health insurance law, and has said little about health insurance during the 2024 presidential campaign. do not have. However, multiple attempts by Congress to repeal it during his administration failed. Trump hinted in his debate with Harris that he might try again to repeal it, but if elected, he said he would keep the system in place until something better comes along.
“It’s still far from great,” he said of Obamacare during the debate. “If I could come up with a plan that would reduce the burden on people and provide better health care than Obamacare, I absolutely would. But until then, I’m going to do it as well as I can.” ”When asked if he had any plans to replace this, President Trump replied, “I have an idea for a plan.”
Harris’ ad blitz is part of a $370 million investment in TV and digital advertising that will run through Election Day and aims to reach voters in key states in both English and Spanish. The purpose is
New ads include “Yamelisa,” featuring a diabetic living in Allentown, Pennsylvania, who struggled financially throughout her life to pay for insulin after being diagnosed with diabetes at age 10. It depicts what happened. The ad praises Harris for setting a cap on monthly insulin costs of 1 million yen. It costs $35 and is available to voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia and North Carolina.
The second ad, “Stop Him,” targets Mexican-American voters in Nevada and Arizona, with a doctor telling Latino voters that President Trump intends to repeal the Affordable Care Act. It warns that it intends to leave them uninsured.
Harris’ standing among Latinos, a key voting bloc in several battleground states, falls short of traditional support for Democratic presidential candidates.
According to the latest NBC News poll, Harris enjoys 54% support among Latinos, compared to 40% for Trump, but her lead with this demographic has increased over the past four elections. That’s smaller than the Democratic presidential candidates in the presidential cycle.
A recent New York Times/Siena poll also shows Harris with an 8-point lead over Trump among Arizona Latinos (49% to 41%). But she fell short of Biden’s 2020 performance with Latino voters, where Biden won 61% of the Latino vote in Arizona, compared to 37% for Trump.
Harris ran through her economic proposals for Latinos on the campaign trail Sunday in Las Vegas, touting her track record of supporting middle-class Americans throughout her political career. did.
“We have to lower the cost of living,” she told a crowd in Nevada. “Because even though our economy is doing well in many ways, the prices of everyday necessities like food are still too high. You and I both know that. We have plans that include cutting costs on everything down to groceries.”
Harris will highlight the economic challenges on the trail and the Biden administration’s efforts toward affordable health care access. But voters in battleground states who told CBS News that economic issues are their top concern sometimes appear skeptical of Mr. Trump and Ms. Harris’ plans and proposals.
“As a young person, I don’t see a lot of decisions being made for the younger generation,” said Nevada college student Stephanie Camerino. She says she is struggling to pay for her education. “It’s difficult, but I’m still thinking about who to vote for.”
“She’s been in power forever,” said Carlos Gutierrez of Tucson, who said he would not vote this time. “No one is doing anything for our family. It’s an empty promise.”
Harris has relied heavily on surrogates to get her message to Latino voters, including one in early September in Allentown, Pennsylvania, a city with a large Latino population, during a “Latinx Harris Waltz” campaign. Including her husband, Doug Emhoff, who gave a speech. event. Some Latinos consider voting beyond political ideology.
“I’ve voted Republican before,” said Jose Rosado of Allentown, Pennsylvania, who attended Emhoff’s event. “But in the current political climate, I think we really need a candidate in the White House who has values for the people, not just conservative values and liberal values.”
On the campaign trail, it is still common to see Latino voters in the seven battleground states that are likely to decide the outcome of the election, fearing a second term for Trump as president, remaining unwavering in their support for Harris.
“She would help us in any situation,” Viera Lopez, a retired nurse from Nevada, told CBS News. “She’s not here for herself, she’s for the people.”
See more of Nydia Cavazos
