Trump rally’s Puerto Rico slur lands with a thud in Pennsylvania

Lisa Harmony had a warning for Donald Trump as she stood outside the small grocery store she runs in a heavily Puerto Rican neighbourhood of Allentown, Pennsylvania, one of the cities that will decide next week’s US election.

Two days after a rightwing comedian at a huge Trump rally in New York City called Puerto Rico, a US territory in the Caribbean Sea, an “island of garbage”, Harmony said the fallout could be brutal for the former president.

“I think he’s going to lose a lot of votes because of that. Definitely a lot of the Latino population,” Harmony said. 

Pennsylvania, the largest battleground state and the biggest prize in the White House race between Trump and vice-president Kamala Harris, has a Puerto Rican population of nearly 500,000. As US citizens, the adults can vote.

While Trump has made some gains among Hispanic voters — especially men — the racist comments from the rally on Sunday are jeopardising his gains at the eleventh hour in places such as Allentown and the surrounding Lehigh Valley. 

“I have some friends that got offended,” said James, a 35-year-old Puerto Rican who works at a barber shop in downtown Allentown, just a few blocks away from a venue where Trump was set to hold a rally on Tuesday. “They took it to the heart right away.”

James, who did not want to give his last name, said he would still vote for Trump. But he was “absolutely” worried that the insults about Puerto Rico would peel away votes from others in the community. 

The Trump campaign has distanced itself from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s insults at Madison Square Garden, saying they did not reflect the “values” of the former president. But Trump has not personally apologised for it, as some members of the Puerto Rican community in Allentown have been demanding.

Instead, speaking to reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Tuesday before flying to Pennsylvania, he called the New York rally a “lovefest”. 

Democrats in Pennsylvania have rapidly seized on the outrage to try to win over some votes in the final stretch of the race, and say the attack on Puerto Rico is resonating.

“It’s broken through like very few things in this campaign,” Bob Casey, the Pennsylvania senator, told reporters at a separate event in Allentown on Tuesday. 

Susan Wild, the local Democratic congresswoman, said the battle between Trump and Harris would probably be “determined” in her district and said her phone had been bursting with expressions of outrage. 

“So many people in the Puerto Rican community who know me, who have my phone number, who know that I travelled to the island on official business . . . have just been really dismayed that President Trump did not come out and say something about this comedian’s comments,” Wild said. 

The Lincoln Project, a political action committee formed by Republicans opposed to Trump, has already aired a digital ad in Pennsylvania, targeted at Puerto Ricans. “We are not a punchline,” the ad says, referring to the comedian’s comments at the Trump rally.

But there could be limits to the Democrats’ ability to capitalise on the comedian’s remarks.

Despite the media furore in recent days, some residents had not heard about the Madison Square Garden rally. Others dismissed it.

Elisa Rivera, a 24-year-old Puerto Rican Trump supporter, said she planned to vote for him “because he was very good when he was in office” on the economy and immigration. While she was not aware of the comedian’s mockery of Puerto Rico, Rivera said she had seen a meme on Facebook showing that “Kamala was on the toilet and Trump flushed her down”. 

Fred Younes, a Syrian-American working at the local corner store, which had a flag of Puerto Rico in the window, said people in the area would not be too bothered and he would keep backing Trump.

“The adage says ‘sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me’,” he said.

Still, Harris — who secured the backing of Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny immediately after the remark — has jumped on the furore to hammer away at one of her final closing arguments in the campaign: that Trump lacks the character to run the country.

Aside from the racist quip about Puerto Rico, the opening acts for the Trump event in New York on Sunday included other vulgar and racist remarks about minorities.

“She is delivering solutions and Trump is sowing division and hate. We are definitely seeing added support coming our way,” Jen O’Malley Dillon, the Harris campaign chair, told reporters on Tuesday.

Some Hispanic voters who were not from Puerto Rico expressed solidarity with the community. Juan Ramirez, a 73-year-old Dominican-American in Allentown who supports Harris, said the comedian’s comments had been “disgusting”.

Juan Diego Barreto, who is Mexican-American, said he was also supporting Harris. “Whether it was a joke or not, it was very bad,” he said.

Clara González, a 28-year-old Puerto Rican, said she was supporting Harris because of her social policies and to protect abortion rights. But she described the slur on Puerto Rico as “disrespectful”.

She added: “We all live in America at the end of the day and we all have respect for our country. And Puerto Rico is part of the United States.”

Additional reporting by Lauren Fedor in Washington