Since Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race on July 21, the Democratic Party has rallied around Vice President Kamala Harris in a show of support, in addition to the president himself.

In a favorable week for Donald Trump's campaign, Kamala's arrival in the electoral race substantially changed a scenario that for him was positive, as the former president had been leading the polls in relation to Biden, especially after the first presidential debate. A survey by the Pew Research Center showed that Trump would have 44% of voting intentions against 40% for Biden, a difference that highlighted the fragility of the current occupant of the White House's campaign. However, in her first step as a possible candidate for the head of the ticket, seeking the party's nomination, Kamala Harris raised US$81 million, in addition to receiving support from various wings of the Democratic Party and currently surpassing Trump in numerous voting intention polls. In other words, Biden's vice president has established herself as a viable option to Donald Trump, but other concerns, such as the progressive rejection of the Latino vote, remain.

The support of the Latino community in the United States was already a very relevant problem for Joe Biden. Today, it remains a huge challenge for Harris to overcome with less than 100 days until the election, which is scheduled for November 5.

Historically, Latinos have established themselves as a group that strongly supports the Democratic Party. Between 2016 and 2024, the Latino vote grew from 27 million voters to 36 million, a significant number according to a survey by the PewResearch Center. In addition, the Democratic candidates for president have shown strong support from Latinos, as was the case with Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. The candidates obtained, respectively, 71%, 66% and 61% of the Latino vote, signaling significant and essential support for reaching the White House. However, as can be seen from the numbers and also for the 2024 polls, this support has shown a considerable decline. In 2020, Donald Trump won 36% of the Latino vote, a higher number than his predecessor Mitt Romney. In March of this year, according to an electoral survey, 46% of Latino voters preferred Trump, a number six points higher than the 40% of intentions for Joe Biden.

This unfavorable scenario for Joe Biden served as one of the factors that led to his withdrawal from the electoral race. Biden had already been demonstrating some weaknesses that put his leadership position in check since he took office in 2021. Between gaffes, global crises, internal problems and the strengthening of Donald Trump's campaign, the presidential race became increasingly fierce, and the first presidential debate, considered a fiasco in terms of the president's performance, made his reelection bid even weaker. At the same time, Vice President Kamala Harris, since becoming the first black woman to assume the position she won, has never had much prominence in her administration or through her work in the Democratic Party itself, something that made it difficult to believe that her name could be a strong bet for the presidential race. Furthermore, throughout her term, Harris has been involved in national issues that have greatly weakened her image, such as her work on the issue of immigration. In the White House, she would have become the figure responsible for effectively dealing with this entire issue, something that did not happen. Since 2021, many Americans have seen immigration as a problem that Harris has not been able to solve. In this scenario, political clashes have already occurred, such as the case of Republican state governments sending newly arrived immigrants by bus or plane to cities governed by Democrats, such as New York and Los Angeles. In other words, the construction of the idea that there is an internal crisis related to immigration strongly affects Kamala Harris' image, especially among Latinos. However, in recent months, the vice president has become the administration's main voice in other areas of extreme importance to the electorate, such as reproductive rights and abortion. At the end of last year, she announced national events that would have the theme of reproductive freedoms, signaling in a speech: “I will continue to fight for our fundamental freedoms as I bring together all those across America who believe that every woman should have the right to make decisions about her own body”. Among Latinos, 57% believe that abortion should be legal in all cases, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center. According to internal campaign research, 6.7 million Latinas live in the United States and, since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a decision that authorizes abortion at the federal level, 43% of Latinas between the ages of 15 and 49 live in states that have restricted or are likely to make access to abortion more difficult. In a scenario of increasing positions of the Supreme Court and the Republican Party, maintaining this defense is essential to guarantee the support of this electorate. At the same time, her first electoral campaign featured the song “Freedom” by singer Beyoncé, placing Harris in a position very far from Donald Trump’s positions and consolidating her candidacy. However, the work to win back Latinos will be difficult in the few remaining days of the campaign, but the path seems positive for Kamala Harris.

As mentioned above, polls of Latino voting intentions indicated that Trump would win by a few points over Biden, something that Harris appears to be reversing. According to a poll by Somos, a Latino organization, Harris would have 55% of the vote in seven key states for the race: Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia and North Carolina. Trump would have 37% of the vote. Several factors indicate this sudden increase in votes from the Latino population, such as the renewal of the Democratic candidacy brought about by the consolidation of Kamala Harris's name for the presidency, in opposition to former President Trump's unpopular rhetoric about the immigrant population. At several rallies, Trump has been attacked, saying that immigrants are “poisoning the bloodof the country”.

There are other issues that concern Latinos in the country, such as the economy (inflation) and access to healthcare, which may explain the greater closeness of Latinos to Trump, given his campaign’s attempt to garner votes with issues relevant to the middle class in the United States, where many Latinos are included. On the other hand, Kamala Harris has inserted herself as the head of the presidential campaign, redefining the tactics that had been used until then.

Compared to Trump and Biden, she is a more communicative candidate who is implementing initiatives that seek to bring back groups that were moving away from the Democratic Party, such as blacks, women and Latinos. In less than 100 days of campaigning, it will be a difficult task to fully recover the support of a group that has proven to be fundamental to the Democrats' recent victories, but Harris has been applying tactics that have already resulted in the rapprochement of Latinos, such as greater contact with Hispanic organizations and holding rallies in crucial states, such as Arizona. In this way, the strength of this group is evident, recognized by both campaigns and possibly decisive for the electoral result in November of this year.