Insults against Puerto Rico during a rally complicate Trump’s battle for key states

The insults to Puerto Rico during the meeting of the former president and Republican candidate for the White House, Donald Trumpcould be a setback to their ambitions in New York this Sunday, as nearly a million Puerto Rican voters live in the so-called swing states that will determine the winner of the Nov. 5 presidential election.

Before Trump’s speech at Madison Square Garden, the comedian Tony Hinchcliffe said that “There’s literally a floating waste island in the middle of the ocean right now, I think it’s called Puerto Rico”comments that Trump has not rejected and that sparked a wave of condemnation, even among Republicans.

“This will certainly cost Trump very valuable votes,” Raúl Hinojosa, professor of Chicano Studies at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), told EFE.

Politicians from both parties, artists and the Puerto Rican and Latino communities in general in the US have rejected the racist, extreme and vulgar rhetoric that has also accused Hispanics in general of reproducing much.

The campaign came out Monday to distance itself from Hinchcliffe’s words, pointing out that they do not represent Trump, but that the damage appears to be done and that the insult could result in the votes of hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans in the top seven states shift. by Vice President and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, who presented a plan this Sunday to help the island.

Hinojosa and Miguel Tinker Salas, a political analyst and retired professor of Latin American Studies at Pomona University, have warned that the greatest damage to Trump could occur in the state of Pennsylvania, which has a very active Puerto Rican community.

More than 470,000 Puerto Ricans live there Pennsylvania132,000 in North Carolina and another 124,000 in Georgia. Moreover, tens of thousands more live there Arizona, Wisconsin, Snowfall And MichiganThis is evident from data from the Census Bureau.

It could be a final blow that could mark the campaign less than a week before the elections, underscoring that it will be very difficult to erase the media impact, especially thanks to the support of artists like Bad bunny, Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin, Luis Fonsi or René Pérez (Resident) to Harris.

The insult could also take a toll on Trump in states he has supposedly already won and on candidates who support him. The Puerto Rican Roundtable of Florida said in a statement that the candidate “must not forget” that in Florida, approximately 800,000 Puerto Ricans have the opportunity to exercise their right to vote.