How Libre, a Koch brothers group, aims to engage Latinos by criticizing Biden's economic policies

Libre, part of a political network led by the Koch brothers, is launching an initiative aimed at engaging with Latino voters by hitting President Joe Biden on an issue that has proven key for the demographic: his economic policies.

The New York Times reported on Monday that the seven-figure campaign will include digital ads, public events at Latino grocery stores and restaurants and a Spanish-language website criticizing Biden's economic policies, known by some as "Bidenomics." It will also target 20 congressional Democrats in over a dozen states.

"Bidenomics is devastating Latino families' savings, quality of life and their ability to plan for the future," Jose Mallea, Libre's chief executive, said in a statement. "To reverse this trend, it's critical that Latino families learn what overspending and overregulating are doing to our country's economy — and prosperity."

Existing literature backs the initiative's focus. An Axios-Ipsos poll showed that Biden's stance among Latinos has continued to drop lately, with frustrations over inflation and crime contributing to shrinking the gap between him and Donald Trump.

More than half of respondents (53%) said that the former is the issue they find most worrying. Crime came in second with 34%, while immigration stood at 28%.

Another poll by Bloomberg and Morning Consult found that Biden's recent polling bump against presumptive Trump has nearly disappeared in key battleground states thanks to current negative attitudes about the U.S. economy.

According to the poll, a majority of swing-state voters see worsening economic conditions in the coming months, with fewer than one in five saying they expect inflation and borrowing costs to be lower by the end of the year. Similarly, despite a resilient job market, only 23% of respondents said the employment rate would improve over the same time period.

For undecided voters, a group crucial to Biden's effort to close the gap with Trump, the share who expect improvement on those economic factors was in the single digits, according to the Bloomberg News poll.

As per the Bloomberg poll, more than three quarters of poll respondents said the president is responsible for the current performance of the U.S. economy, and nearly half said he was "very responsible."

The latest figures, which come from the Pew Research Center, show that 52% of Latinos currently favor Biden compared to 44% who back Trump.