Latino voters ready to emerge from 'garbage' fight

The Hispanic electorate has found its place at the center of national political discourse in an election marred by nativist rhetoric and punctuated by a “garbage” war.

In the final week of the election, the media tuned its radar on Puerto Ricans in swing states — particularly Pennsylvania and North Carolina — not because the campaigns elevated their concerns, but because of an ill-conceived joke that bashed the U.S. territory.

Crude origins aside, the Puerto Rican electorate’s moment in the spotlight presents an opportunity for the Latino vote writ large.

“This helps us to battle the misinformation, and this helps us to sustain our message that, you know, communities that have large numbers of participation in elections are communities that have better resources, that [have] better schools, better hospitals, better parks,” said Frankie Miranda, president of the Hispanic Federation.

Miranda said that despite the growth in Latino voter participation, "still the headline is ‘Latinos are not participating enough,’ or it is Latinos — the one that, ‘because they are not participating enough that we lost a certain state’ like, for example, what happened with Florida in the past.”

Whether Democrats’ past Florida recriminations — and the ensuing headlines — get replicated in 2024 will depend largely on election results in Pennsylvania.

The state’s Latino Corridor stretches from the Maryland border along Highway 222 to Allentown, a majority-Hispanic city of 125,000 on the fringes of New York City’s commuter footprint.

Before former President Trump’s Oct. 27 Madison Square Garden rally, where comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s joke about “a floating island of garbage” got a mixed reception, the campaigns had already deployed significant resources to the corridor, and will continue to do so until the bitter end.

Trump and Harris will hold dueling rallies in the Latino Corridor Monday afternoon: Harris will be in Allentown and Trump in Reading.

But the unforced error of booking a shock comic for the New York rally is expected to energize low-propensity voters who the campaigns could not reach through conventional means.

“I mean Puerto Ricans, it's their moment. If they don't vote, come and show up and vote, you know what? … Puerto Ricans should be the new Cubans. It’s a swing state. They're the biggest bloc of Latinos in that state. They can all vote. Yeah, is your moment, guys. Don't f--- this up,” said Mike Madrid, a political consultant and co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project.

The Trump campaign initially struggled to contain damage from Hinchcliffe’s joke, but on Tuesday, President Biden muddied the water with his own “garbage” comments on a call hosted by Voto Latino.

On the call, Biden appeared to refer to Trump supporters as “garbage,” though the White House clarified the president was referring to Hitchcliffe, an account the Trump campaign did not buy.

From that point, Trump took on the role of the aggrieved party, appearing in a Trump-branded garbage truck and reflective work vest.

“The problem with what Biden did is he f---ing stepped on the story. It could have gotten bigger and longer and been a stronger narrative. That's all. That's what happened. He f---ing stepped on her momentum,” said Madrid.

By Friday, the story had lost steam on cable news, with outlets including CNN and MSNBC focused on Trump’s latest attack against former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Fox News dedicating some airtime to the White House’s cleanup of Biden’s comments.

But anecdotal evidence suggests Puerto Rican communities in Pennsylvania are still energized against Hinchcliffe’s joke.

“There's nothing, nothing that you can do to a Puerto Rican that is going to move them in one way or another, [apart from] attacking Puerto Rico. You can be here for four generations, or you can just arrive yesterday: It’s the punch in the gut, your heart starts speeding every time you talk about our ancestral island, ancestral home,” said Miranda.

With the back-and-forth so close to the election, polls are unlikely to shift significantly before Pennsylvania counts its official ballots.

But the bet is that the “garbage” war was a net negative for Trump.

“I think it absolutely hurts Trump more, because two of the groups that they need to anchor in the most important state — in Pennsylvania — are going to be motivated by that. Puerto Ricans are pissed. Like, quantifiably, that alone could cost them Pennsylvania,” said Madrid.

“[This] freak show reminded a bunch of college-educated Republicans why they don't like the Republican Party in the first place, or why they're uneasy with it, why they don't like the GOP in the Trump era. It's a reminder that these guys — they're crass, there's a vulgarity they've never liked about Trump. They voted for Trump despite him, because they don't like the Democrats and they like Republican policies.”

Still, the incident reflects a larger trend where parties prioritize the Latino vote, but don’t necessarily shift their broader pitch in doing so.

For Republicans who seek to peel off only a fragment of the Latino vote, that approach can yield positive results.

The Trump campaign, for instance, has been effective at identifying cultural divisions within Latino communities and targeting voters more likely to be responsive to their proposals, according to Ana Valdez, president of the Latino Donor Collaborative (LDC).

“Somebody [in the Trump campaign] understands how we tick, what makes us tick,” she said.

LDC, a think tank founded by business leaders, last week released a report quantifying the political and economic size of the Latino electorate, seeking to drive home the idea that Hispanics can and will flip elections.

“What we expect from this report, we expect from this report is to bring some education, if you may, to bring some light into the real numbers of who Latinos are, into the impact that they are doing, and the potential of the impact if they are engaged again. You know, the Latino vote is for the parties to lose, not the other way around. And these are the numbers that show it,” said Valdez.