Joe Biden, seeking a second term, is campaigning Tuesday in Nevada and Arizona, two states which will certainly be decisive during his face-to-face in November with Donald Trump.
In these lands of the West where the proportion of Hispanic inhabitants continues to grow, the American president must stem the erosion of his popularity with a historically Democratic electorate, but increasingly seduced by his Republican rival.
“It’s largely thanks to you that I beat Donald Trump” in 2020, “I really need you,” said the 81-year-old Democrat from a Mexican restaurant in Phoenix, Arizona, where he launched a vast campaign initiative aimed at the Hispanic electorate.
“He is only interested in the rich,” said Joe Biden, who presents himself as the candidate of the middle and working classes.
Multiple polls show that the president is not benefiting politically from robust American growth, nor from the multiple recovery plans he has launched.
Households remain affected by a strong recent surge in inflation, and are facing, in particular, difficulties in finding housing.
“Much more needs to be done. For too many people, the dream of having a home still seems out of reach. I understand,” Joe Biden admitted a little earlier in the day, this time in Nevada.
The American president will also have to be able to score points on immigration.
CONTESTATION
His strategy is complex. Joe Biden must counter the incessant accusations of laxity made by Donald Trump, who violently denounces the record arrivals of migrants at the Mexican border. But he must also spare the sensitivity of the progressive electorate and a good number of Hispanic voters, to whom he promised to approach the subject with “humanity”.
In Nevada, Joe Biden had collected a little more than 33,500 votes ahead of Donald Trump, out of a total of around 1.3 million votes cast, thanks to his victory in large cities where the population of this mostly desert state, Reno and Las Vegas.
But his Republican rival had slightly improved his result in Nevada compared to 2016.
Arizona, for its part, was at stake in one of the fiercest battles of the last presidential election.
The Democrat won this arid southwestern state, that of Monument Valley and the Grand Canyon, by just under 10,500 votes in 2020 – out of a total of more than 3 million votes.
In 2016, Donald Trump won Arizona.
The Hispanic electorate, which according to some estimates will account for about a quarter of the votes in Arizona in November, perhaps holds one of the keys to the presidential election.
Donald Trump has never acknowledged his defeat in 2020, and the leadership of the Republican Party in Arizona has embraced the 77-year-old mogul’s conspiracy theories since Joe Biden’s narrow victory.
Enough to fuel concerns about strong tensions, even open violence, around next November’s election.