Trump’s Puerto Rico fallout is ‘spreading like wildfire’ in Pennsylvania
Donald Trump has a serious Puerto Rico problem — in Pennsylvania.
Many Puerto Rican voters in the state are furious about racist and demeaning comments delivered at a Trump rally. Some say their dismay is giving Kamala Harris a new opening to win over the state’s Latino voters, particularlynearly half a million Pennsylvanians of Puerto Rican descent.
Evidence of the backlash was immediate on Monday: A nonpartisan Puerto Rican group drafted a letter urging its members to oppose Trump on election day. Other Puerto Rican voters were lighting up WhatsApp chats with reactions to the vulgar display and raising it in morning conversations at their bodegas. Some are planning to protest Trump’s rally Tuesday in Allentown, a majority-Latino city with one of the largest Puerto Rican populations in the state.
And the arena Trump is speaking at is located in the middle of the city’s Puerto Rican neighborhood.
“It’s spreading like wildfire through the community,” said Norberto Dominguez, a precinct captain with the local Democratic party in Allentown, who noted his own family is half Republican and half Democratic voters.
“This was just like a gift from the gods,” said Victor Martinez, an Allentown resident who owns the Spanish language radio station La Mega, noting some Puerto Rican voters in the area have been on the fence about voting at all.
“If we weren't engaged before, we're all paying attention now,” Martinez said. He added the morning radio show he hosts was chock-full of callers Monday sounding off on the Trump rally comments, including a Puerto Rican Trump supporter who is now telling people not to vote for the former president.
Roberto L. Lugo, President of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the National Puerto Rican Agenda, said the nonpartisan group will be releasing a letter, shared exclusively with POLITICO, condemning the comments and urging Pennsylvania Puerto Ricans not to vote for Trump. Lugo, who was born in Puerto Rico and now lives in Philadelphia, said Pennsylvania Puerto Ricans are “really disturbed” over the comments.
“I’m not a Republican, I’m not a Democrat, I'm independent,” Lugo said. “But at this point, it’s not about political, partisan issues. It is about the respect and honor our Puerto Ricans and Latinos deserved as citizens and legal residents of this country, that’s the issue.”
“We held Trump and his campaign responsible for this disgraceful act,” he added.
Harris leads Trump 49%-47% among likely voters in the latest Economist/YouGov survey out Wednesday, with 2% unsure and roughly 3% backing other candidates (margin of error 3.6)—a slight narrowing from Harris’ 49%-46% edge last week.
Harris is up 51%-47%—with just 3% still undecided—in a very large likely voter poll by the Cooperative Election Study, a survey backed by several universities and conducted by YouGov, which polled around 50,000 people from Oct. 1 to 25.
Trump also trails Harris 44%-43% in a Reuters/Ipsos poll published Tuesday (margin of error 3 points), representing a narrowed lead for Harris since she entered the race in July, with the previous Reuters/Ipsos poll showing her ahead by two points.
Harris is up three points over Trump, 50%-47%, in Morning Consult’s weekly survey, also released Tuesday (margin of error 1 point), after she led by four points, 50%-46%, in the group’s previous two polls.
Harris leads Trump by four points, 51%-47%, in an ABC/Ipsos poll of likely voters released Sunday, up slightly from her 50%-48% edge in early October, while a CBS/YouGov survey out Sunday shows Harris up 50%-49%, a shift from the vice president’s 51%-48% mid-October lead (the ABC poll had a margin of error of 2.5, and the CBS poll’s margin of error was 2.6).