A racist joke against Puerto Ricans has created aftershocks that may shake up the election

Ahead of Donald Trump’s Tuesday appearance in the heavily Latino city of Allentown, Pennsylvania, a comedian’s racist joke about Puerto Ricans at the former president’s Madison Square Garden rally drew fresh blowback. 

In an editorial endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris, Puerto Rico’s largest national newspaper, El Nuevo Día, expressed anguished outrage over the remark made Sunday at the New York rally. 

"Today, all of us who love this beautiful Garden of America, and of the world, feel aching inside and our hearts are tight with rage and pain," the editorial stated. 

“Trump has for years maintained a discourse of contempt and misinformation against the island that reveals an obsession and disdain for a people who do not have the power of the vote to defend themselves, since the three million American citizens who live in Puerto Rico cannot vote in the presidential elections,” the editorial stated. “However, the other five million who live in the United States, whom they also labeled as trash, can vote.”

One of those five million Puerto Rican voters is Allentown resident Efraín Dávila. 

He told NBC News he believes Trump does “let it happen,” referring to the jokes taking aim at his homeland. Dávila, an independent voter who has previously voted Republican, said he’s no longer supporting that party because it “is all about Trumpism and MAGA.”

Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny added to the firestorm over the remarks, publishing on Tuesday a breathtaking 8-minute video narrated by Oscar-winning Puerto Rican actor Benicio Del Toro. The video showcases, with stunning cinematography, how Puerto Rican people have endured trials and tribulations throughout history and have beat the odds to excel as world-renowned artists, activists, athletes and political activists. Bad Bunny captioned the poignant and powerful video “garbage” on his Instagram.

On Tuesday afternoon at a business roundtable in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, Trump said that no president had done more for Puerto Rico than he had, after a participant told the former president that Puerto Rico loved him and was behind him. He did not mention the joke.

Hinchcliffe made his racist jokes in an election cycle in which Republicans have said they are messaging to Latinos as Americans. Earlier this year, Trump’s campaign rebranded Latinos for Trump, its Hispanic outreach group, to Latino Americans for Trump. 

This messaging has helped Trump and Republicans attract Latinos on the issue of the economy, but racial and cultural identity remain a button that can be pushed, said Democratic pollster Carlos Odio, co-founder of the research firm EquisLabs.  

Republicans are saying, “‘You do belong in our party. Ignore all the nasty rhetoric because we’re where you are on the economy,’” Odio said. “It’s moments like this that reinforce the extent to which many Hispanics, including in this case Puerto Ricans, feel like Republicans, at the end of the day, aren’t going to be looking out for them.”

Rafaela Gomez of Pennsylvania attended the Madison Square Garden rally Sunday. Gomez, who is of Dominican descent, was back in her hometown of Allentown Tuesday. She said she’s still supporting Trump.

“Trump had nothing to do with that,” Gomez said.

Gomez, who is married to a Puerto Rican man who also supports Trump, said that while she “didn’t agree with calling Puerto Rican people trash,” she believes the joke intended to expose how the current “administration has failed Puerto Rico.”  

Hinchcliffe didn’t refer to the Biden administration or any other administration when he spoke about Puerto Rico.  

A Hispanic Federation/Latino Victory poll of Latinos in battleground states shows Harris with 57% of the Hispanic vote in Pennsylvania, compared to 27% for Trump and 11% undecided. The Oct. 2-10 poll of 1,900 Latino registered voters across eight battleground states had an overall margin of error of 2.3%.

When Trump announced his 2016 presidential bid by trashing people from Mexico — calling them rapists and saying they bring crime and drugs — some voters explained it away as a reference to immigrants only. He lost some GOP Latino supporters with that comment and more he made in a follow-up Arizona rally, but others stayed and since then he’s drawn new Latino support. 

But the comedian at his rally attacked Puerto Ricans, who are American citizens at birth, not immigrants, said Mike Madrid, a Republican consultant who opposes Trump.

Harris already is doing better with Latinos and Republican defectors, Madrid said. Backlash from the comments need only marginally shift a small share of their votes, 1% to 2%, in her favor and “that’s the whole state,” according to Madrid. 

The outrage expressed by Puerto Rican celebrities such as Bad Bunny, JLo, Marc Anthony and Geraldo Rivera, who have voiced support for Harris or contempt for Trump and the comedian’s jokes on social media, could have that kind of impact, he said.

Madrid added that it is more difficult to waive off the comedian’s racist jokes, because they did not come from Trump.

Trump “has so numbed us to his own racist vitriol that if it was Donald Trump (who made the jokes) it would have gone away an hour after it happened,” Madrid said. “When it’s other voices making racist attacks up on stage, our sense of shock and shame resurges.”

Frankie Miranda, president and CEO of the Hispanic Federation, a nonpartisan, Latino-focused nonprofit, called the garbage dump joke “a real punch to the gut — a stark reminder of how the candidate has felt about our community since Hurricane Maria.” 

The group does not make endorsements, but was already planning to reach out to 3 million people with its get-out-the vote campaign. 

“Now we are making sure that Puerto Ricans in Pennsylvania understand our position and reaction to this,” said Miranda, whose grandmother died in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria while the island was without electricity. “I feel a responsibility as a Puerto Rican to send to all people that we have in our network our reaction and response to this.” 

While the general consensus among the Puerto Ricans interviewed is condemnation for the racist joke, the discrepancy mostly lies on whether they think Trump is responsible for the comments or not. 

Gardner Mojica, Gomez’s husband and also a Trump supporter, believes “Trump had nothing to do with it,” saying his candidate “doesn’t support racism and he wouldn’t call Puerto Rico an island of trash.” 

Following Trump’s rally in Allentown, on Wednesday award-winning “Hamilton” creator Lin Manuel-Miranda planned a celebration of Puerto Rican culture in Philadelphia, to counter the depiction of the island as refuse, Miranda said. 

Nicole Acevedo reported from New York, Suzanne Gamboa from San Antonio and George Solis from Allentown.