After losing in the first two states, the former American vice-president bet on minorities to save his candidacy.
By choice or by necessity, Joe Biden does not display a hectic public program. Tuesday, February 18, four days before the ninth debate of the candidates for the Democratic primaries in Nevada, the former favorite of the ballot, the man who reigned over the race with all his stature as a former vice-president, chose to hold a meeting in a modest Asian restaurant in Las Vegas, a few miles from the casinos.
The place can only hold a hundred people, but it has the advantage of being right next to the Chinatown Plaza Mall, where there is an advance polling station. Nevada, the third state in the succession of primaries, has innovated. To increase voter turnout, especially among hotel workers, the Democrats decided to allow voters to vote early. On ballots, voters rank candidates by preference, without having to attend the meeting itself – the caucus. On Saturday, the Nevada caucus primary, the party hopes to avoid the Iowa fiasco, due to a broken technology. Google called to the rescue. Votes recorded on the iPad and paper.
Arrived an hour late – but he makes up for forty-five minutes of selfies -, Mr. Biden embarks on an unbroken monologue, bouncing from one personal anecdote to another. How his wife Jill long spurned him – “Five times! », He is indignant. How he found his distant Irish family in County Mayo thanks to “Barack.” The former vice president is jovial. He sometimes comes up against memories or acronyms, in particular “AAPI,” which aptly designates the community in front of which he finds himself, Asian, and originally from the Pacific Islands. But the assistance is acquired, and his message is clear: it is too early to bury Joe Biden.
The former vice president hopes to bounce back in Nevada
After two severe defeats in Iowa and New Hampshire, the former vice president hopes to bounce back in Nevada. A matter of survival. Less than a month after the first vote, it is to remember the good memories of the commentators. In the debates, his competitors don’t even attack him anymore. On Wednesday, he looked amazed that we forgot to question him: “But it was I who had the ban on assault rifles adopted! (…) It was I who passed the decisive vote for Obamacare! “
Latinos courted on all sides
In Las Vegas, he can count on the party machine. More than a hundred local elected officials supported him, as did the representative Steven Horsford, the first black elected representative of his state in Congress, five Hispanic members of Congress (and the singer Cher, who performs at Park MGM). “Trump knows that Biden is the most dangerous competitor. He even risked impeachment to find out information about him,” said Representative Dina Titus, before the audience at the Chinese restaurant.
Harry Reid, a former colleague of Joe Biden of the Senate, on the other hand, abstained. Craftsman of the electoral strategy of opening to minorities, who sees today women being the majority in the Assembly of Nevada, the former senator did not support anyone, but he appears in an advertisement for Elizabeth Warren. And he had remarkably kind words for Michael Bloomberg ( “I appreciate him very much. He was a good mayor. And no one in this country, I mean no one, has done as much as he did on the climate and weapons on fire”).
Joe Biden relies mainly on minorities. “We have not yet heard the opinion of 99.9% of African-Americans, we have not yet heard the opinion of 99% of Latinos or Asians. The idea that we will decide on the appointment before hearing everyone’s ridiculous, ” he asserts. Symbol of the demographic transition of the western states, Nevada is the fifth state in the country where whites no longer represent the absolute majority. Latinos make up 29% of the population, Blacks around 10%, like Asians.
With a weight of 20% in the democratic electorate, Latinos courted on all sides. General disappointment: the Culinary Workers Union, the powerful hotel trade union, decided not to choose a candidate, as did the 2016 primaries, however, it warned its 60,000 members against the “health plan” By Bernie Sanders, Medicare for All, which eliminates private insurance.
The union, which negotiates the contract of employment of the employees of the casinos, wishes to keep the excellent health coverage won over. During the Las Vegas debate, Bernie Sanders took care to reassure them. No question of eliminating the advantages gained. “I have had a 100% union balance sheet for thirty years,” he pleaded.
The Vermont senator, who was narrowly beaten by Hillary Clinton in 2016, is voted winner in the polls. It has 250 organizers on-site (against fifty for Joe Biden), thanks to the support of the Latin association Mijente. He held rallies at the university and on the football fields of lower-income neighborhoods. A Telemundo poll puts him side by side with Joe Biden for the Latin vote (34% for Biden, 31% for Sanders with a margin of error of 5.3%). But if the former vice-president has the support of Hispanics over 50, the Socialist senator wins that of the young.
Joe Biden hopes to climb to second place
According to his advisers, quoted by Politico, Joe Biden hopes to climb to second place. His campaign finally succeeded in making the buzz, an essential factor in a political landscape punctuated by Donald Trump’s Tweet. He made fun of a video clip of how Mr. Bloomberg claimed the support of Barack Obama when he was mayor of New York: “Welcome to the proceedings, Mike. “
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