Donald Trump has a critical Puerto Rico drawback — in Pennsylvania.
Many Puerto Rican voters within the state are livid about racist and demeaning feedback delivered at a Trump rally. Some say their dismay is giving Kamala Harris a brand new opening to win over the state’s Latino voters, particularlynearly half 1,000,000 Pennsylvanians of Puerto Rican descent.
Proof of the backlash was quick on Monday: A nonpartisan Puerto Rican group drafted a letter urging its members to oppose Trump on election day. Different Puerto Rican voters had been lighting up WhatsApp chats with reactions to the vulgar show and elevating it in morning conversations at their bodegas. Some are planning to protest Trump’s rally Tuesday in Allentown, a majority-Latino metropolis with one of many largest Puerto Rican populations within the state.
And the world Trump is talking at is positioned in the midst of town’s Puerto Rican neighborhood.
“It’s spreading like wildfire by the neighborhood,” stated Norberto Dominguez, a precinct captain with the native Democratic social gathering in Allentown, who famous his circle of relatives is half Republican and half Democratic voters.
“It’s not the neatest factor to do, to insult individuals — a big group of voters right here in a swing state — after which go to their house asking for votes,” Dominguez stated.
The timing couldn’t be worse for Trump. Virtually per week earlier than Election Day, he’s pushing to chop into Harris’ margins amongst Latinos, particularly younger males who’re frightened concerning the financial system. However the feedback from pro-Trump comic Tony Hinchcliffe Sunday evening, referring to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of rubbish,” has reverberated all through Pennsylvania and elsewhere, prompting even the previous president’s Republican allies to defend the island and denounce the feedback. And with the race basically a toss up, each vote counts — particularly in Pennsylvania.
“This was similar to a present from the gods,” stated Victor Martinez, an Allentown resident who owns the Spanish language radio station La Mega, noting some Puerto Rican voters within the space have been on the fence about voting in any respect.
“If we weren’t engaged earlier than, we’re all paying consideration now,” Martinez stated. He added the morning radio present he hosts was chock-full of callers Monday sounding off on the Trump rally feedback, together with a Puerto Rican Trump supporter who’s now telling individuals to not vote for the previous president.
In response to questions on the feedback, and whether or not Trump was planning to publicly denounce them, Trump marketing campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated in a press release, “As a result of President Trump’s plans to chop taxes, finish inflation, and cease the surge of unlawful immigrants on the southern border, he has extra help from the Hispanic American neighborhood than any Republican in latest historical past.”
Native Democrats like Dominguez argue the fallout on the very least reminds Puerto Rican voters of Trump’s earlier feedback concerning the island, calling it “dirty” and tossing paper towels to survivors throughout a 2017 go to after Hurricane Maria devastated the island and killed greater than 2,000 individuals.
And in an indication of how frightened native residents are, a faculty district in Allentown introduced Monday morning that it had canceled courses for Tuesday, when Trump visits.
The Trump marketing campaign has tried to distance itself from the comic’s feedback about Puerto Ricans and Latinos. Danielle Alvarez, senior adviser to the Trump marketing campaign, stated Sunday night that the “joke doesn’t mirror the views of President Trump or the marketing campaign.” One other Trump adviser stated the audio system’ remarks weren’t vetted previous to the rally. Key Republican lawmakers in Florida, New York and different states with giant Puerto Rican populations shortly denounced the feedback, saying it didn’t mirror GOP values.
However different Trump allies, and his operating mate JD Vance, have downplayed the rhetoric as simply jokes. Throughout a rally in Wisconsin Monday, Vance stated that he had not heard the joke and that “possibly it is a silly racist joke” or “possibly it’s not” however Harris saying individuals ought to get offended by a comic’s jokes is “not the message of a profitable marketing campaign.”
“Our nation was constructed by frontiersmen who conquered the wilderness,” Vance stated. “We’re not going to revive the greatness of American civilization if we get offended at each little factor. Let’s have a humorousness and let’s have a bit enjoyable.”
At a rally on Monday evening in Racine, Wisconsin, Vance stated that he was not frightened “{that a} joke {that a} comic who has no affiliation with Donald Trump’s marketing campaign informed,” would price the marketing campaign votes amongst minority teams in swing states. “I simply don’t purchase that. I don’t assume that is how most Individuals assume, regardless of the coloration of their pores and skin,” he stated.
Donald Trump Jr. and different MAGA Republicans have shared social media posts with the same message.
However at the very least one native Republican is denouncing the remarks.
“The feedback made by this so-called ‘comic’ at Madison Sq. Backyard weren’t humorous, they had been offensive and fallacious,” state Rep. Ryan Mackenzie informed POLITICO. The Republican is locked in an in depth race towards Democratic Rep. Susan Wild, who represents Allentown and a key a part of the swingy Lehigh Valley. Mackenzie stated he was nonetheless wanting ahead to Trump’s go to.
And, some Pennsylvania GOP strategists, whilst they tried to downplay the electoral fallout, acknowledged it was an unforced error on the very least.
Jimmy Zumba, a Latino GOP strategist based mostly within the Lehigh Valley, known as them “silly feedback,” that had been clearly not based mostly on the immigration and crime themes that Republicans have tried to hammer this cycle.
“Clearly I might like to be speaking about that, to be on the offense on that, however proper now we’re on the protection making an attempt to defend feedback that aren’t from the marketing campaign or President Trump,” Zumba stated, including he didn’t consider the matter is “going to shift utterly a Latino vote.”
However many native Puerto Rican neighborhood members are unwilling to let go of the feedback.
Roberto L. Lugo, President of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the Nationwide Puerto Rican Agenda, stated the nonpartisan group shall be releasing a letter, shared completely with POLITICO, condemning the feedback and urging Pennsylvania Puerto Ricans to not vote for Trump. Lugo, who was born in Puerto Rico and now lives in Philadelphia, stated Pennsylvania Puerto Ricans are “actually disturbed” over the feedback.
“I’m not a Republican, I’m not a Democrat, I am impartial,” Lugo stated. “However at this level, it’s not about political, partisan points. It’s concerning the respect and honor our Puerto Ricans and Latinos deserved as residents and authorized residents of this nation, that’s the problem.”
“We held Trump and his marketing campaign answerable for this disgraceful act,” he added.
State Rep. Danilo Burgos, co-chair of the “Latinos con Harris” group in Pennsylvania, stated residents have unfold the feedback on social media and inside Philadelphia’s Puerto Rican neighborhood.
“I noticed two girls specifically saying they had been contemplating voting for Trump, however they don’t seem to be now,” he stated, “due to the feedback.”
He additionally stated that Puerto Rican megastar Unhealthy Bunny’s endorsement of Harris may very well be a recreation changer in Pennsylvania, arguing {that a} third-party candidate in Puerto Rico’s governor’s election surged from a double-digit deficit as a result of the famous person bought concerned. Unhealthy Bunny has not endorsed a candidate in that race, however has paid for billboards opposing Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon’s New Progressive Celebration.
“She was operating away with the election,” he stated. “Now that election is a statistical tie.”
Notably, Donald Trump Jr., Trump’s son, made a cease in Allentown on Monday, forward of a deliberate occasion in Coplay, Pennsylvania, a Lehigh Valley borough outdoors Allentown.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro on Monday additionally famous Trump made the selection to not distance himself from the feedback.
“If Donald Trump actually wished to disassociate himself with that, the very first thing he would have stated when he got here onto the stage at Madison Sq. Backyard was, ‘hey, pay attention, I heard that individual’s try at humor. It was not humorous. I stand with the Puerto Rican neighborhood,’” Shapiro informed a local talk news radio station in northeast Pennsylvania. “He did not try this.”
Republicans have been desperate to peel away Puerto Rican and Latino voters from Democrats in Pennsylvania and different swing states. Trump truly made features amongst voters in North Philadelphia’s Puerto Rican-dominated neighborhoods in 2020. Harris sought to shore up her help within the neighborhood throughout a Sunday go to to Freddy and Tony’s, an area Puerto Rican restaurant, the place she was talking about her plans for the island across the identical time that Trump’s rally featured the disparaging feedback.
Kenny Perez, an worker at Freddy and Tony’s, stated in an interview on the restaurant on Monday that he’s usually turned off by politics and usually doesn’t vote. However he condemned the Trump rally feedback and stated whereas he’s nonetheless deciding, this yr, he thinks he’ll vote for Harris and “positively not for Trump.”
“I feel he gave Kamala a lift,” Perez added.
Different Puerto Ricans need an apology from Trump himself.
“They need to assume earlier than they put an individual in entrance of hundreds of thousands of individuals to speak like that and joke like that,” stated Ivonne Concepion, who additionally lives in North Philadelphia. “He’s gotta say ‘perdon,’ not simply sorry, however from right here,” she stated pointing to her chest.
Francis Chung contributed to this report.
