The Biden campaign on Friday launched ads targeting Latino voters by linking former President Donald Trump’s comments to Venezuelan strongmen Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro.
Yet Mr. Biden was willing to strike a deal with Mr. Maduro that was criticized for bolstering the Venezuelan’s authoritarian regime.
The ads seize on Mr. Trump’s comments that he would be a dictator on his first day in office if he’s reelected in 2024 and flashes images of the former president along with Chavez, who died in 2013, and Mr. Maduro.
A narrator says Republicans, like dictators, are trying to take away Latinos’ “rights and freedoms” as well as threatening their safety.
Three versions of the ads, titled “Sees Us” and “Nos Ve,” were released. One is in English. Another is in Spanish with a Mexican accent, with a third in Spanish with a Puerto Rican accent.
The ads will air on Hispanic TV programs in Arizona, North Carolina and Pennsylvania and on digital platforms in Georgia, Missouri and Wisconsin, according to the Biden campaign.
During a Fox News town hall with Sean Hannity earlier this month, Mr. Trump was asked whether he’d behave as a dictator if elected to a second term.
“Except for Day One,” Mr. Trump responded. “No, no, no — other than day one. We’re closing the border. And we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I am not a dictator.”
Mr. Trump wrote in a Truth Social post that he was joking.
The Biden broadsides are part of a $25 million ad buy aimed at Latino and Black voters, the largest media effort targeting such voters in history.
Recent polls suggest that Mr. Biden may be in trouble with Latino voters come 2024. In 2020, Mr. Biden secured 59% of the Hispanic vote compared with 38% for Mr. Trump. That represents a sharp decline from the 91% of Hispanic voters who supported Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.
An October poll from New York/Times Siena College found that only 9% of Hispanic voters said there is a “chance” they would support Mr. Biden in 2024 compared with 39% who said there is “no chance.”
A Univision poll of Hispanic voters found that just 27% believed Mr. Biden had a plan to deal with the high cost of living and inflation and roughly 33% said they didn’t believe he had a plan.
Although the ads paint Mr. Maduro, who has been Venezuela’s president since 2013, as an authoritarian strongman, Mr. Biden was willing to wheel and deal with him in October.
The Biden administration announced it would ease sanctions on Venezuelan oil and gas if the country agreed to election reforms. Critics on both sides of the aisle widely panned the deal, saying the U.S. should focus on domestic production and questioned whether Mr. Maduro would live up to his side of the bargain.
Sen. Marco Rubio, Florida Republican, said the deal meant Mr. Biden was “complicit in prolonging the Venezuelan people’s agony under the illegitimate grip of dictator Nicolas Maduro.”
“On the heels of announcing the smallest five-year offshore oil and gas leasing plan in decades, this administration is turning to Venezuela … one of the world’s dirtiest energy producers and an oppressor of its own people,” Sen. Joe Manchin III, West Virginia Democrat, said of the deal.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.