For Donald Trump, it was a “love fest”; for his team, a misstep that could be costly. The former president and current Republican candidate for the White House is not used to doing this. to apologize for your mistakeslies or acts, some condemned by the courts. Therefore, no one expected him to apologize for the racist insults who poured out last Sunday during their massive rally at Madison Square Garden in New York. But one should not expect his own campaign to make an effort to distance yourself from comments and yet it happened.
In fact, it was the actor Tony Hinchcliffeknown for his history of racist and misogynistic jokes and responsible for opening the event, who gave a speech in which, among other disqualifications, he called out Puerto Rico “a floating island filled with garbage”. These statements provoked an avalanche of criticism from the authorities and renowned Puerto Rican artists, such as rapper Bad Bunny, actress Jennifer Lopez and singer Ricky Martin. It also set off all the alarms within the Republican Party.. In an atypical statement, Danielle Alvarez, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said the joke “does not actually reflect the candidate’s views” on the territory. Other conservatives took to social media to distance themselves from what happened.
Behind this attempt at dissociation lies the fear that, just a few days before the presidential elections, voters undecided opt for the rivalKamala Harris. Especially since after months of technical equality between the two contenders, the latest data on the national polling average offered by FiveThirtyEight places Democratic politics in the lead with 48.1% support against 46.7% of the republican. Now, the fear also comes from the fact that the comedian’s attack was directed against a community that could be decisive in the results.
Puerto Rico This is, generally speaking, an anomaly. Officially a Commonwealth of the United States, its residents have U.S. citizenship, but cannot vote in U.S. elections. November 5. Unless they live in one of the 50 US states. Today, according to data from Pew Research Center, it is estimated that he hasand 5.9 million Puerto Ricans in the country. However, they are not distributed equally. Even though the vast majority live in Florida and New York (with clearly defined political leanings), there are significant Puerto Rican communities in swing states and, therefore, essential to electoral competition.
This is the case of Pennsylvaniaone of those known as pivotal states (Swing States) – territories that could be decisive for the victory of Kamala Harris or Donald Trump because they have never had a defined trend towards one party or another – where more than 470,000 Puerto Ricansaccording to the latest census (dating from 2020). In fact, within the large Latino community that lives in this state They constitute the main population group. They also have a large presence in North Carolina (115,917) and Georgia (109,000), two other contested places.
The end of high abstentionism?
It’s not just anger at Trump that’s driving Puerto Ricans to support Harris hinge statesbut they can help Democrats regain the majority in Congress in Washington I’m just going to vote. And historically, the Hispanic community is characterized by a high abstentionismespecially among young people. Puerto Ricans (who are the second largest Hispanic community in the country behind Mexicans) are no exception.
In this sense, political scientist Eduardo Gamarra, from Florida International University, explained to the EFE agency that “Puerto Ricans are proud and anger can bring them to the polls”. In other words, racist remarks can increase the electoral participation of a group of people who, simply by setting foot in the United States, already have the right to vote.
Thus, it could be that the 800,000 Puerto Ricans of 1.3 million people living in Florida to vote en masse for Democrats in one state traditionally republican. And while they couldn’t take power from Trump, they could give Ecuadorian-born former Democratic Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell the slight boost she needs to reclaim her seat against the current Republican Senator Rick Scott.
