Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda is appearing in a new ad for Joe Biden’s presidential campaign to shore up support among Florida’s Puerto Rican voters, in the all-important battleground state.
The Spanish-language ad debuted on Thursday. Its $500,000 price tag was paid for by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s $100 million effort to help Biden win the White House, along with help from the United for Progress PAC, a left-wing group that tailors its messages to Latinos. The ad is airing on Spanish-language TV stations in Tampa and Orlando.
“We need to vote for Joe Biden as president so he can help unify the country, take our small businesses forward and respect and help the Puerto Ricans on the island,” Miranda says in the ad.
The RealClearPolitics average for the Sunshine State has Biden up 3.7 percent three weeks out from Election Day.
Trump enjoys a great lead of 55 percent over Biden with voters of Cuban heritage. But by some estimates, the president is not doing as well with Puerto Rican voters. By some estimates, there’s roughly 1.2 million people of Puerto Rogan heritage in the Sunshine State.
Lin-Manuel Miranda, the Broadway star snd member of Michelle Obama’s When We All Vote initiative, has said President Trump is going “going straight to hell, @realDonaldTrump. No long lines for you. Someone will say, ‘Right this way, sir.’ They’ll clear a path.”
In 2016, Miranda promoted a Latino voter registration effort meant to push Latino voters to Hillary Clinton camp..
It may seem telling, though, that Biden’s camp feels the need to appeal directly to Puerto Ricans.
Perhaps it is because Trump has just picked up a big endorsement from the Puerto Rican community. Just this week, Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda Vázquez endorsed President Trump, telling Puerto Rican voters to “evaluate who has Puerto Ricans and their needs in the hardest moment… It’s Donald Trump.”
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