Biden Returns to Campaigning, Hoping to Refocus on the Basics

LAS VEGAS — President Joe Biden will intensify efforts Tuesday to court Black and Latino voters, using a two-day swing through the crucial battleground state of Nevada to try to return to the campaign that might have been.

As he resumes politicking after a pause following the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump this weekend, the president plans to focus on core issues like the economy and lowering housing costs, an attempt to reset the conversation after an extraordinary three weeks that has also included a dismal debate performance and calls from panicked Democrats to withdraw from the race.

The trip will also provide Biden an opportunity to try to draw attention away from Republicans, who polls show are making gains with Black and Hispanic voters and are holding their national convention in Wisconsin this week, as he sells his vision for a second term.

On Tuesday, Biden is set to speak at the annual convention for the NAACP, be interviewed by Black Entertainment Television and participate in an economic summit with Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev., the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. On Wednesday, he will speak before UnidosUS, a Hispanic civil rights and advocacy group.

They are the kinds of campaign stops Biden has long made. But everywhere he goes, the events of recent weeks are sure to shadow him.

Nervous fellow Democrats have called on Biden to show that he can campaign aggressively, and his performances will be closely scrutinized.

And even as Biden focuses on the economy, his administration has made clear that it will continue to frame Trump as a threat to democracy and the civil liberties of Black and Latino Americans. But after a would-be assassin’s bullet grazed Trump’s ear at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, Biden will be treading newly perilous ground.

Biden hopes to shift the conversation, in part, by introducing two new plans to rein in housing costs. On Tuesday morning, he called on Congress to pass legislation giving “corporate landlords” — defined by the White House as those with more than 50 rental units — a choice to cap annual rent increases on existing units at 5% annually or lose federal tax breaks based on property depreciation.

And in a direct appeal to Nevadans, Biden also said his administration would repurpose federally owned land that officials deem unused or underused to create 15,000 affordable housing units in Nevada.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .