Trump holds rally in Pennsylvania city with Latino-majority population
Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday evening returned to a Hispanic-majority town in eastern Pennsylvania after a comedian at Trump's rally at Madison Square Garden over the weekend sparked controversy by making racist jokes about Latinos, including calling Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage."
Trump's rally took place in Allentown, Pennsylvania, a city of more than 125,000 people where the Hispanic population makes up 55% of the total, according to the U.S. Census data, with much of that number being Puerto Ricans.
Among the scheduled speakers beforehand at the Allentown rally was Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, whom Trump has enlisted to court Latino voters across the country.
Early on, Trump made no mention of the controversy but did refer to his Madison Square Garden rally, calling it "the greatest evening anyone has seen politically," adding, "the love was unbelievable."
His second campaign stop of the day in Pennsylvania -- after a roundtable in Drexel Hill, where the population is overwhelmingly white - the Allentown visit was an opportunity for the former president to court Hispanics, and more specifically Puerto Ricans, after Hispanic groups on both sides of the aisle called the racist jokes made at the New York rally "derogatory," "offensive," and "disrespectful."
The comments in question were made by controversial comedian Tony Hinchcliffe during pre-programming earlier Sunday afternoon, including explicit comments about how Latinos "love making babies."
"I don't know if you guys know this, but there's literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it's called Puerto Rico," Hinchcliffe said on stage to a crowd of nearly 20,000 Sunday night, after the former president himself the previous day called the United States a "garbage can for the world."
Hinchcliffe, instead of apologizing for his comments, attacked his critics as lacking a sense of humor and accused them of taking the joke out of context to "make it seem racist."
The former president denied knowing the comedian on Tuesday, telling ABC News Senior Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott: "I don't know him, someone put him up there. I don't know who he is."
Trump also insisted he didn't hear any of the comments, even as they've been played on television and written about extensively. When asked what he made of them, he did not take the opportunity to denounce them, repeating that he didn't hear the comments.
Trump's campaign has also tried to distance itself from comedian Hinchcliffe's comments, saying they don't reflect their views.
Several Republicans have come out against the jokes, including the chair Republican Party of Puerto Rico, Angel Cintrón, who called Hinchcliffe's comments as "unfortunate, ignorant, and entirely reprehensible," as well as "racist."
Resident of Puerto Rico, as a U.S. territory, do not vote for president in the general election, but the Republican Party of Puerto Rico held a primary in April as part of the Republican presidential nominating process. Donald Trump won the primary and netted the territory's delegates.
Puerto Ricans living in the United States, however, make up the largest Hispanic group in seven states across the country, including in the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania, according to the U.S. Census data.
In Pennsylvania, where President Joe Biden won in 2020 by just over 81,000 votes, 3.7% of the state's total population, or roughly 486,000 people, were of Puerto Rican origin. Pennsylvania is again expected to be an extremely tight race between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, with Trump ahead of Harris by just 0.2% according to 538's polling average as of Oct. 29.
Overall, Pennsylvania's eligible Latino voter population has more than doubled since 2000, from 206,000 to 620,000 in 2023, according to WNTM's analysis of U.S. Census Bureau figures.
