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| Vice President Kamala Harris launches AANHPI for Biden-Harris in Las Vegas. |
With the issues surrounding President Biden's age sputtering his bid for re-election, the Democratic Party is reaching out to Asian American, Native American and Pacific Island voters to solidify their votes.
The Democrats launched the AANHPI for Biden-Harris coalition in Las Vegas on Tuesday where will-known celebrity and former "Top Chef" host Padma Lakshmi introduced Vice President Kamala Harris, the first South Asian and first female vice president of the United States.
“We need to make sure that AA and NHPI voices are heard at the ballot boxes around our country, just as we need to make sure that those voices are represented in all levels of government,” Harris said in a video released by the campaign Tuesday. “Asian Americans must be in the rooms where the decisions are being made.”
Harris, whose parents were immigrant scholars, spoke to an audience, she knows well describing Trump's immigration policies: “Someone who vilifies immigrants, who promotes xenophobia, someone who stokes hate should never again have the chance to stand behind a microphone and the seal of the president of the United States.”
The AANHPI voters' coalition will be led by Nadia Belkin, the Biden-Harris campaign’s national AANHPI engagement director, and the campaign is bringing on Andrew Peng as its national AANHPI spokesperson.
TThe Democrats had earlier launched similar outreach efforts to the Black and Latino voters, all which tilted towards Biden in 2020.
In the aftermath of Biden's lless-than-stellar debate performance last month raising questions about his mental capabilities, Biden's campaign has been all-hands-on-deck for damage control. How Biden performs in the following days, which includes a live press conference later today becomes more critical.
In that context Harris' keynote address at a political town hall hosted by APIAVote in Philadelphia this Saturday is generating more attention. Previously planned as a follow-up to the Las Vegas launch of the AANHPI for Biden-Harris, media focus has grown because her address may indicate the future of the campaign.
Nevada's fastest growing demographic is the AANHPI population growing to almost 10% of the total population. As a result, according to APIA Vote, AANHPI voters now make up a hard-to-ignore 12% of the state's electorate. Filipino Americans make up about half of that community.
Launching the AANHPI for Biden-Harris in Nevada is no accident. It is a crucial swing state and as such, is an important part of the political strategies of both major parties..
Nevada has been a presidential bellwether state, consistently backing the eventual White House winner – until 2016, when Hillary Clinton won the state but went on to lose the presidency to Trump.
Nevada is used to being a political battleground and the story is no different in 2024. The Silver State swung left in the 2018 midterms, electing its first Democratic governor in 20 years and tossing out a Republican US senator. Biden won Nevada in 2020.
Today, Democrats control three of Nevada’s four seats in the US House of Representatives and both US Senate seats.
Republicans are pouring resources into the state in an effort to win the Senate seat held by Democrat Jacky Rosen who upsent the incumbent GOP senator in 2018. She is being challenged by Republican Sam Brown in the tight race.
Some of the attendees of Tuesday's rally wore traditional Central and Southeast Asian dresses, others had leis common to Hawaiian culture, while some sported traditional Pacific Islander jewelry. Harris made a point of not just praising a crowd as filled with ''longtime friends'' but also calling Las Vegas ''Hawaii's ninth island."
Andrea Rodriguez Campos, a teacher in Las Vegas, was moved to tears as Harris described her multi-racial upbringing and the importance of immigrant communities since Harris' late mother was from India and father from Jamaica.
'I find that everything they're supporting is so important,'' Rodriguez Campos said of the Biden administration. ''Being an immigrant myself, I mean, that's why we're here. Being able to see somebody like her reminds me that because she can, we all can.''Carlo Miciano, 26, was happy to see the rally, full of faces that he said resembled his own. To Moreno, Harris is a great representative of the AANHPI community, which he believes lacks political representation at all levels of government.
“She puts a face to what the community looks like,” he said. “Many people when they think of Asians, they think of East Asians, not Southeast Asians. She helps represent the totality of what the Asian community is.”
EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X or at the blog Views From the Edge.
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