Biden's new year comes with a new problem

WASHINGTON (TND) — For President Biden—the new year, presents a new problem. At least, compared to the last election.

Hispanic voters, a critical part of Democrats’ voting base, are picking a different path according to recent polls by USA Today & Suffolk University.

Biden who dominated Trump among that demographic in 2020, winning Hispanic voters by 65 to 32%, now trails Trump by 5 percentage points.

“We're proud to see that these great numbers are led by surging support from Hispanic Americans, African Americans and young people. How about that?"Trump back in November boasted at a rally.

Biden will have to hope that if it’s a two-man race, many of the Hispanic voters, possibly 20% who currently support a third-party candidate, will in the end switch back to him.

“Unemployment under 4% for the longest stretch in half a century. And Latino unemployment at record lows,” Biden announced to a largely Hispanic audience in September. Cheers rang out as he also declared, “We already announced 37,000 projects nationwide, investing in the future of Latino communities.”

That, however, is as immigration issues continue to plague the White House and cities, inundated with new residents.

Chicago Alderman Brian Hopkins told CNN last week, “We desperately need decompression in Chicago. We've got 30,000 migrants; we simply can't handle anymore. We're not equipped for it.” He added, “I'm a Democrat but I'll say the Biden administration has absolutely dropped the ball. I'm not going to let him off the hook. They have, they have left us in the ditch with this and that's unacceptable.”

But Democrats insist in a two-man race, despite dropping support in young and Black voters too, that Biden’s still primed to edge Trump.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said in a television appearance this past weekend, “He almost certainly would. Biden beat him by more than seven million votes last time and we just have millions of young new voters who joined the rolls, and they can’t stand Donald Trump and the Republican party.”

Although the president’s low approval rating could also threaten Democrats’ control of the U.S. Senate and swing state candidates like Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Bob Casey in Pennsylvania and Nevada’s Jacky Rosen may now be strategically distancing themselves a bit from Biden.

That’s a constant pitfall for any unpopular presidential incumbent and something Trump too suffered from in his 2020 reelection bid. Now though, that appears to be Biden’s challenge.