KISSIMMEE, Fla. – Vice President Joe Biden campaigned in Osceola County on Tuesday, seeking votes from a growing Latino community.
“I’m asking for your vote. I’m gonna work very hard every single day to get it,” Biden said to a room with very limited seating due to coronavirus precautions.
According to Osceola County Commissioner Vivian Janer, 55 percent of Osceola residents are Hispanic.
Biden’s campaign said he decided to kick off Hispanic Heritage Month in Kissimmee, which sits along the I-4 corridor -- a stretch of Central Florida that is notorious for making and breaking presidential elections.
“In government, there’s no room for the idea that there’s second class citizens,” Biden said. “We’re all equal, all deserving. I’m running to be president of all Americans.”
Biden was joined by entertainers Eva Longoria, Ricky Martin and Luis Fonsi, who graduated from Dr. Phillips High School.
“When I arrived in Florida I could barely speak English,” Fonsi said. “By the time I left, I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, and the fact that I realized that dream proves that in this country anything is possible.”
Outside the event, support for who should be president was equally split.
Some people held signs supporting Biden, while others held signs supporting Trump.
That echoed the findings of a new Monmouth University poll, which shows both men in a razor-tight race in the state of Florida.
According to the poll, 50 percent of the respondents in Florida support Biden, which 45 percent support Trump, with 5 percent either unsure or planning to vote for someone else.
Biden said he knows every vote in Osceola County will count.
“Here in Florida and all across the country I want each and every one of you to get involved in the election,” he said. “It sounds like hyperbole -- or an exaggeration -- but our democracy depends on every voice being heard and every vote being counted.”