LAS VEGAS—President Joe Biden is aiming at bolstering his support among blacks, Latinos, and union workers in the key swing state of Nevada.
The president urged the crowd to cast votes for him in the Democrat primary on Feb. 6. But he faces no formidable party challenger, making that contest largely a symbolic one.
So President Biden took aim at his presumed Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump.
“You all are the reason why I’m president of the United States of America,” President Biden told rally attendees, some of whom wore T-shirts bearing union logos.
“You’re the reason Donald Trump is a former president. ... and you’re the reason we’ll make Donald Trump a loser again!”
In 2020, then-candidate Joe Biden won Nevada by less than 3 percent. President Trump has been trying to flip the Silver State into his column.
At the same time, independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. aims to grab votes from each of them.
Blacks, Hispanics, and union workers make up constituencies that President Trump and President Biden have both been courting more extensively as the expected rematch between them has become increasingly likely.
Those groups could help to determine which candidate wins Nevada’s six Electoral College votes. Although that doesn’t seem to count much toward the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency, even a small number of electoral votes can make the difference between victory and defeat in a tight race.
On Feb. 4, President Biden appeared in a predominantly black neighborhood in Las Vegas’s historic West Side.
The area is emblematic of black entrepreneurship, Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) said before the president took the stage at the Pearson Community Center.
Mr. Horsford said he was born near that site on the West Side, so he knows the area’s “storied history” well.
In the 1950s, as the famous Las Vegas Strip was in its infancy, “most of the black people who had moved here came experiencing the vestiges of segregation that they fled in the South,” he said.
“In response, the West Side coalesced and created its own business quarter on Jackson Street, just a few miles from where we are now,” Mr. Horsford told the audience.
The area became the cradle of black-owned casinos, hotels, and social clubs that formed the “West Side Strip.”
“The historic West Side was also known for hard-working people and public servants, teachers and pastors, the first black doctors and, of course, business owners,” Mr. Horsford said.
He urged the audience to reelect President Biden, whom he said he trusts to preserve and advance that legacy.
Biden Credited for Boosting Minorities
Magnolia Magat, co-owner of Truffles N Bacon Cafe, which serves American Filipino fare, offered a testimonial.She lauded President Biden for supporting small businesses such as hers. She said he ensured that they received funding to keep them afloat during the coronavirus pandemic, noting that her business has expanded dramatically.
“President Biden stood with us,” Ms. Magat said. ”President Biden has always been a champion of small businesses like Truffles N Bacon.”
During his remarks, President Biden took credit for providing incentives to black and Latino small businesses, helping them to grow faster than they have in many years.
The president also said he had kept his promises to appoint minorities to important roles.
He appointed the first black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. He also said he has “appointed more black women to the federal courts of appeal than every other president in American history combined.”
For example, among 175 federal judges confirmed under the Biden administration, two-thirds of them are “people of color,” President Biden said.
University of Nevada–Las Vegas student Carolyn Salvador Avila, who is Hispanic and serves as national president of the College Democrats of America, praised President Biden during a speech that preceded his remarks.
“Trump’s record couldn’t be more different from our president [Biden] who fights for Latinos and for young people across the country, isn’t that right?” she said. The audience cheered its approval.
‘Right to Choose’ a Hot Topic
Abortion was also a big issue that Ms. Avila, President Biden, and others addressed at the event.“He [Trump] helped overturn Roe v. Wade and jeopardize rights of all women. That’s not right,” Ms. Avila said, as the audience booed.
Roe v. Wade was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that made most abortions legal in the United States. But under President Trump’s administration, the court overturned that decision, sending abortion-regulating authority back to the individual U.S. states.
“Thank you, Joe—Joe Biden and [Vice President] Kamala Harris—for standing up to protect the right to choose, the right for a woman to protect her body,” Ms. Avila said.
President Biden chided President Trump for “bragging about overturning another basic freedom ... a woman’s right to choose,” referring to abortion.
Trump-appointed justices played a pivotal role in the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson decision that reversed Roe v. Wade. He has taken credit for that ruling, calling it a victory for the pro-life movement.
Democrats have been pushing back since then. But some Republicans have advocated a national abortion ban. If Congress were to approve such a measure, President Biden declared, “I will veto it.”
The audience applauded and cheered loudly after he said that. The crowd also responded with enthusiasm when President Biden said, “I’m going to bring back Roe v. Wade.”
Jobs Touted, Border Avoided
In a nod to the union workers who were present at the campaign event, President Biden also touted his support of their causes and his job-creation efforts.He asserted that his administration fueled the creation of about 15 million new jobs, a figure that critics say is artificially inflated. They say employers were forced to eliminate many jobs during the height of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020–21, so the “new” jobs are just replacing those that were lost.
During his speech, President Biden made no mention of the U.S.–Mexico border crisis, a top issue in the 2024 presidential campaign.
But President Trump says no such deal is needed. He points to data showing that illegal border crossings dropped during his presidency, which he says is a result of a clamp down that he implemented by using existing presidential powers.
President Biden repeated his claim that President Trump is putting democracy at risk with some of his actions, including “refusing to accept the results of a legitimate election.”
President Trump and many of his supporters say they believe that President Biden won the presidency via a “stolen” or “rigged” election in 2020.
They also counter that President Biden and his Democrat allies are the ones who are threatening democracy by working with Big Tech to censor Americans’ free speech and prosecuting their political foes including President Trump.
The former president is facing 91 criminal charges. Other Americans have also been unfairly targeted, President Trump has alleged.
President Biden, who has distanced himself from those prosecutions but says they seem to be justified, said voters should reject “the nightmare of Donald Trump.”
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said that President Biden “has been a nightmare for this country in just three short years in the White House, and no amount of gaslighting will make Americans forget about all the misery and destruction he has brought.”
President Trump has asserted that the economy was better under his policies and that Americans enjoyed lower prices for groceries, gasoline, and other essentials.
Meanwhile, President Biden has touted “Bidenomics,” saying his policies created jobs and helped the nation rebound from the pandemic.
