“Desperate Housewives” star Eva Longoria canceled plans to host a campaign event in support of President Joe Biden in Phoenix on Monday.
The Arizona Republic reported the Biden campaign called off the event that day citing unspecified travel issues.
“Longoria was expected to host an event focused on rallying Latinas behind the president. She had planned to argue that Biden’s 2024 rival, former President Donald Trump, has ‘demonized Latinos throughout his political career’ and his agenda for a second term would particularly harm Latinas and their families, the campaign said,” according to the Republic.
The campaign had publicized the event with news outlets like USA Today, The Hill and the U.K. Daily Mail, in addition to the Republic, picking up the story in advance of it.
A poll released last month found by Axios/Ipsos that Biden’s favorability among Latinos has fallen from 53 percent in December 2021 during his first year in office to 41 percent in March of this year.
A New York Times/Siena College poll released on Monday showed Trump ahead in five of six key swing states that Biden carried in 2020, including Arizona.
According to the survey, Trump has a 49 to 42 percent lead over the president in the Grand Canyon State.
Republicans are on OFFENSE in 2024:
📈Trump leading in 5 of 6 Swing States
📈Trump at 50% in Nevada
📈Trump UP 7 in Arizona
📈Trump UP 10 in Georgia
📈New Jersey IN PLAY
📈Virginia IN PLAY
📈Minnesota IN PLAY
📈1M+ GOP Voter Advantage in FloridaAmericans are ready for CHANGE. pic.twitter.com/iHEjHTlDU3
— Byron Donalds (@ByronDonalds) May 13, 2024
The cross-tabs of the Times poll show Biden and Trump evenly splitting the Hispanic vote with 31 percent each in the six swing states, with independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. included in the race.
Will Biden’s loss of Hispanic support cost him the election?
If RFK Jr. is not on the ballot, Biden slightly edges out Trump 45 to 42 percent, among Hispanics, with 12 percent undecided or declined to answer.
According to the Pew Research Center, Biden carried 59 percent of the Hispanic vote to Trump’s 38 percent in the 2020 election.
Biden and Longoria were together last summer at the White House when the president hosted a screening of the film she directed titled, “Flamin’ Hot.”
It’s a dramatized biopic of a one-time janitor at a Frito-Lay plant in southern California who took credit for creating the popular Cheetos flavoring of the same name, though a 2021 Los Angeles Times article disputed his claim.
(The dispute was fairly decisive, with the article citing “interviews with more than a dozen former Frito-Lay employees, the archival record and Frito-Lay itself.” It was headlined, “The man who didn’t invent Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.”)
After the White House screening, Biden was called out on social media for allowing his hands to wander in a hug with Longoria.
#WATCH | Strange moment: Eva Longoria pushes Joe Biden away after the president placed his hands on her back during the actress’s visit to the White House to screen the film “Flamin’ Hot” pic.twitter.com/y4b76NAAda
— VOZ (@Voz_US) June 16, 2023
Longoria is a long-time supporter of the Democratic Party, speaking at its 2012 national convention getting behind then-President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign and at the 2016 convention backing Hillary Clinton.
The actress also kicked off the virtual convention the Democratic Party held in 2020.