Joe Biden’s presidential bid received a boost Monday from one of the leading Latinos in Congress, with the chairman of the Hispanic Caucus’ political arm endorsing the former vice president as Democrats’ best hope to defeat President Trump.

“People realize it’s a matter of life and death for certain communities,” Rep. Tony Cardenas, D-Pacoima (Los Angeles County), told the Associated Press in an interview, explaining the necessity of halting Trump’s populist nationalism, hard-line immigration policies and xenophobic rhetoric that the California congressman called cruel.

Cardenas is the chairman of Bold PAC, the political arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

His announcement follows presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ weekend of mass rallies with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a freshman congresswoman from New York who has become a face of the progressive movement and a key supporter for the Vermont senator’s second White House bid.

The dueling surrogates highlight a fierce battle between Sanders and Biden, the leading Democratic candidates among Latinos according to most polling, while also demonstrating the two candidates’ starkly different approaches to the larger campaign.

Biden is capitalizing on his 36-year Senate career and two terms as Barack Obama’s vice president to corral Democratic power players across the party’s various demographic slices. Cardenas joins four other Hispanic caucus members who’ve already backed Biden, a show of establishment support in contrast to some Latino activists who’ve battered Biden over the Obama administration’s deportation record.

Sanders, true to his long Capitol Hill tenure as an outsider and democratic socialist, eschews the establishment with promises of a political revolution, just as he did when he finished as runner-up for Democrats’ 2016 nomination.

Together, it’s an argument on politics and policy at the crux of Democrats’ 2020 nominating fight.

Sanders and supporters like Ocasio-Cortez argue that existing political structures cannot help working-class Americans, immigrants or anyone else. That argument, they insist, can draw enough new, irregular voters to defeat Trump in November.

“We need to be honest here,” retorted Texas Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, a Biden supporter. “If Joe Biden loses the primary, Democrats will lose in 2020.”

Texas Rep. Filemon Vela, who also backs Biden, said Biden is best positioned for a general election on immigration because of his plans to roll back Trump’s restrictions and boost the asylum process, while stopping short of decriminalizing all border crossings. Sanders supports making all border crossings civil offenses, rather than criminal, a position first pushed by the lone Latino presidential candidate and former Obama housing secretary Julián Castro.

“In some swing states, that might not go over well,” Vela said, adding that the distinction is more important to political pundits than to Latino voters.

Bill Barrow is an Associated Press writer.