As absurd as it may sound, Joe Biden’s campaign team is hoping that the Copa América soccer tournament, happening now in multiple cities across the United States, can help the president win back male Latino voters and, with those voters, re-election.
Last week, in the lead up to the 16-team competition featuring World Cup champion Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and the U.S., Biden’s campaign announced plans for a major ad blitz.
Part of the plan includes selling “Biden 46” soccer jerseys, providing home viewing party toolkits with halftime “conversation guides” and paying for digital billboards near host stadiums.
Part of the plan includes selling “Biden 46” soccer jerseys, providing home viewing party toolkits with halftime “conversation guides” and paying for digital billboards near host stadiums to reach “a diverse and hyperengaged audience that may not be that dialed into politics or the 2024 race,” NBC News reported.
The reported seven-figure media and organizing outreach effort centers on a 30-second “Gooall!” campaign ad, with versions in English and Spanish, that will be broadcast in key swing states through the end of the tournament in mid-July.
From a cultural perspective, the Biden campaign’s decision to go all in on Copa América should be commended. Over the last few years, Biden and the Democrats have struggled with trying to find the right way to connect with what has always been a complex and misunderstood electorate. While a single message can never address every sector of the country’s 36.2 million eligible Latino voters, the more tailored the campaign’s messages are to specific sectors — as, in this case, using soccer as the entry point with Latino men — the better Biden’s chances to win.
Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez told NBC News that the plan is to “harness the energy of Copa to mobilize and reach the Latino voters who will decide this election in their communities, on the airwaves, and at Copa matches — all with a simple message: President Biden has had our back for his whole career and is fighting for our community every single day, while Donald Trump has spent every chance he gets fighting for himself, while attacking and failing our community.”
Fútbol ads are not new for the Biden campaign, which has run ads on ESPN Deportes during soccer matches this year and, in another spot, has been messaging Latino men by playing up Trump’s “fake toughness.” But with Copa América producing record ratings for the English-language Fox Sports broadcast and Univision expecting the July 14 final game to be the country’s most viewed Spanish-language event of 2024, the current ad campaign is an opportunity for Biden to make a case as to why Latino men should vote for him in November.
According to a Pew Research analysis, Latino men were Trump’s third most supportive group of voters in 2020. (White men and white women were first and second.) With the 40% of Latino men who chose Trump in 2020, it was a significant 12-point increase from his 2016 support. On the Democratic side, 65% of Latino men voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, but only 57% chose Biden in 2020.
Fútbol ads are not new for the Biden campaign, which has run ads on ESPN Deportes during soccer matches this year and, in another spot, has been messaging Latino men by playing up Trump’s “fake toughness.”
Enter sports and soccer. A 2023 Fast Company article cites data that says 94% of Latino men in the U.S. are sports fans and 54% are “avid” fans. Nielsen reported in 2017 that Latinos “accounted for an overwhelming 68% of soccer’s viewership during the year, compared to about 12% of viewership to all sports.” That trend has not changed, with advertising and marketing experts citing the sport’s diversity, youth and incredibly loyal audiences as soccer’s demographic future. A 2024 marketing study about soccer cites that 73% of all Latinos in the U.S. over 16 years old are soccer fans. According to AdAge, Copa América could be “2024’s Biggest Cultural Moment” for sports in this country.
And if the U.S. team advances deep into the tournament (its convincing 2-0 win Sunday has fans thinking big) and happens to face Lionel Messi’s Argentina team in the final, it would be a global event. Political campaigns like to bet big on these types of moments, and that’s what Biden’s campaign has done.
It’s impossible to know which political ads will resonate. They can be a starting point to engage reluctant voters, but there’s no way to know if Biden’s Copa América strategy will pay off in November.
“This is a great tactic for the Biden campaign. But they don’t have a tactical problem, they have a strategic problem,” Mike Madrid, veteran Latino political consultant and author of “The Latino Century,” told me Tuesday. “They need to connect with Latinos about the economic pain they’re feeling. I am not sure soccer ads get there.”
Biden has a mixed record on issues that matter most to Latinos, and Latino men in particular. Economic concerns among Latinos has been consistently reflected in polling during the Biden administration and in states such as California, Texas and Arizona, 52% of Latinos say they are worried about making next month’s rent or mortgage. It’s no wonder that a big part of the Biden Copa América “Gooall!” ad touts millions of new jobs created and investment in businesses. The campaign is trying to craft a message that it hopes appeals to Latinos.
Campaign messaging is not policy. However, to change hearts and minds, you need to meet voters where they are at, and for the next several weeks, a very important sector that Biden needs for a second term will be filling stadiums across the country and watching a lot of soccer. Biden, like anybody who’s been on the soccer pitch, knows that when given the opportunity, you must take the shot and hope it leads to a game-winning goal.
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