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Two Latin superstars — Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny and regional Mexican singer-songwriter Alejandro Fernandez — have shared their music in support of Joe Biden’s run for the White House. The Biden-Harris campaign released two ads on Friday courting Latinx communities in three critical swing states: Arizona, Florida and Pennsylvania.
Puerto Ricans comprise a key voting bloc in Florida and Pennsylvania, where prospective Biden voters can hear Bad Bunny’s 2020 breakup song, “Pero Ya No.” The song is set to footage from several Trump rallies, interspersed with shots of detained immigrant children, protestors facing off with riot police, and Trump tossing rolls of paper towels to Puerto Ricans after Hurricane Maria. “Before I loved you, but now I don’t,” sings Bunny in Spanish.
Meanwhile, in a bid to win over Arizona’s Mexican-American community, the Biden campaign deployed one of Alejandro Fernandez’s latest hits, “Decepciones,” or “Deceptions.” In it, audio from Trump’s anti-immigrant speeches are paired with Fernandez’s lines: “If we’re talking about disappointments, I think yours has been the most hurtful.”
The new Biden ads follow this year’s Democratic National Convention, which was criticized for the dearth of Latinos invited to speak during last week’s broadcast. Yet according to a recent CBS News poll, in Texas and Florida, Biden counts the same level of Latino or Hispanic support as Hillary Clinton did leading up to the 2016 election. In Arizona, Biden’s numbers are slightly higher than Clinton’s in 2016.
In 2017 the Pew Research Center estimated that a total number of 60 million people, or 18 percent of the U.S. population, identifies as Latino or Hispanic.
