Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms endorsed Biden this summer and recently joined him at a meeting with other black mayors from the South who are considering which candidate to back. She vouched for Biden’s commitment to the black community even if he says things that seem in poor taste, such as his comments early in the campaign in which he fondly recalled being able to work with segregationist-era senators early in his career.

“The larger context of it was that you have to work across the aisle with people you don’t like, people who you don’t agree with,” she said. “I do it each and every day as mayor of Atlanta in a red state.”

Bottoms is a prominent surrogate with black voters, stumping for Biden in South Carolina and at historically black colleges. She’s among a few high-profile African Americans associated with his campaign, including campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond, a Democratic congressman from Louisiana and the former head of the Congressional Black Caucus.....

Richmond credits Biden’s popularity with black voters to their ability to discern authenticity and the vice president’s relatability that transcends race.

“If they look at his life, they understand although he’s white, he’s had a life full of some very big ups, but some humongous downs,” Richmond said, adding that Barack Obama’s decision to choose Biden as his running mate sends a strong signal to black voters.
“We don’t want to lose,” Richmond said. “He’s our best chance and he was vice president to Barack Obama. The person he trusted the most was Joe Biden.”

Joe Biden and I share a problem that’s not always easy to talk about. In fact, that’s the problem. We stutter. That makes a lot of things hard to talk about.

Now that the 77-year-old former vice president is running for president, many people understandably are asking whether his notorious gaffes, bloopers and stumbles are related to his age.....

Should more voters know about Biden’s stuttering challenges? He certainly shouldn’t try to run away from it, says another stutterer, Michael Sheehan, a Washington-based communications coach who has been helping Biden prepare for debates. Passing along some campaign advice from MSNBC host Chris Matthews, who was sharing a quote favored by Robert F. Kennedy, Sheehan told me, “Always hang a lantern on a problem.”

I agree. I’m sure many readers reacted to The Atlantic revelations as Ramesh Ponnuru, senior editor at the conservative National Review, did on his magazine’s website: “I had no idea, but it helps explain some of his verbal tics.”

Indeed it does. But, politics aside, what should really matter to voters isn’t Biden’s speech problems but how well he rises above them.

As Iowa and New Hampshire voters boost Pete Buttigieg’s presidential hopes, Latinos in Nevada and California are asking: Pete who?

Buttigieg’s struggles to connect with voters of color, even as he’s vaulted into the top-tier of the Democratic presidential race, doesn’t end with black voters. The South Bend mayor polls in the low single digits among Latinos, too. And Nevada — the third state to cast ballots and where Latinos make up about a third of the population — threatens to deliver a blow to the 37-year-old’s campaign before South Carolina even votes.

In interviews with more than a dozen Latino activists and leader from Washington to California and Nevada, some members of the key voting bloc describe Buttigieg’s outreach as non-existent. His problem among Latinos has been largely overlooked as Buttigieg labors to counter criticism that he is out of step with African Americans. That liability became so pronounced this week that Buttigieg felt compelled to personally call an African-American writer for The Root who ripped the mayor's past comments about low-income children of color.

Buttigieg has consistently polled in the low to mid-single-digits among Latinos. In a Fox News poll of Nevada released earlier this month, he had 1 percent support among Latinos, while Sanders led with 31 percent and Biden 24 had percent. A Telemundo poll found Buttigieg at 1 percent support among Latinos in Clark County, Nevada, home to Las Vegas. Nationally, Buttigieg drew 5 percent among Hispanics nationally in a recent Morning Consult poll.