READING, Pa. — Sitting in El Mofongo Restaurant, Joseph Nuñez hunches over a table, his chin resting in his hands, reflecting on the joke from a comedian a week earlier that had undermined months of his work trying to persuade Latino voters to support former President Donald Trump.
The timing of that joke at Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden — a punchline that called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” just before Election Day — could not have been worse, said Nuñez, who represents Reading on the Berks County Republican Committee. More than 70% of people in Reading are Latino, most of them Puerto Rican.
“We are fighting tooth and nail — I mean literally tooth and nail — every day. We're on the ground, we're on the streets,” said Nuñez.
On Monday, this city of about 95,000 people is at the epicenter of the final day of the 2024 election. Trump is slated to have a rally here at 2 p.m. ET, while Vice President Harris will stop by Reading after she holds a rally in Allentown, about an hour’s drive up the Hwy. 222 corridor.
It’s a region that could decide which candidate wins Pennsylvania — and that could well decide who becomes the next president.
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But ever since that joke, Nuñez has been taking a lot of incoming. “‘How are you going to represent someone that is just disrespecting us like this? I can't believe that you're still vouching for this guy.’ Things like that. I could go on,” he said in an interview. “I've been called racist more than I can count.”
For Democrats, the joke was a 'political gift'
The timing of that joke could not have been better for Democrats. It came on the day Harris released a video proposing a new task force to work on the Puerto Rican economy and its longstanding power grid issues — and as she visited a Puerto Rican restaurant in Philadelphia.
After the joke, megastar Bad Bunny and a firmament of other Boricua celebrities denounced the joke and endorsed Harris. Jennifer Lopez gave a passionate address to a rally in Las Vegas. And on Saturday, actor Rosie Perez was canvassing for Harris in Reading.
“We were given a gift by the Republican Party on Sunday night at Madison Square Garden and we're capitalizing on it. And so that's why I'm here,” Perez said in an interview.
There are about 580,000 Latino voters living in the Pennsylvania, most of them with Puerto Rican ties.
“It just boggles my mind that people still want to vote for this man,” Perez said.
Joining Perez, local resident Eva Clemente — who grew up on the island — said the joke was personal. “He's talking about our ancestors, our families, our parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles,” Clemente said.
“He doesn't care about Puerto Ricans, Latinos. He only cares about himself and his rich people,” she said.
She and her husband Osvaldo said they are voting for Harris. “We got to move on from this freaking guy,” Osvaldo Clemente said. “He's dividing everybody, putting everybody against each other. We got to get him out and start being normal again.
Republicans are working to move past the joke
The Trump campaign set up shop in downtown Reading months ago — part of its strategy to made inroads in Pennsylvania’s Latino community.
Trump held a rally here just three weeks ago. Nuñez, whose parents are Dominican, said he sees Trump’s return trip as kind of an apology for what happened at his rally.
“I think that a lot of people are seeing the value of what we are bringing to the table,” Nunez said, noting Latino voters have strong conservative values.
Sitting nearby, David deJesus said he is leaning toward voting for Trump, though the offensive joke about his island gave him pause. “I like the family values, and he’s protecting that,” deJesus said.
His wife Dina said she doesn’t like Harris because she supported gender-affirming medical treatment for transgender people during her 2019 campaign — an issue that the Trump campaign has spent millions advertising on television. But DeJesus said she was leaning toward not voting.
“Trump — his craziness… and Kamala, I feel like she’s not backing up the way family values are,” she explained.
Misael Nieves, a registered Republican who lives near Philadelphia, said he plans to vote for Trump despite the sting of the joke. “I did feel offended because I'm Puerto Rican and we're proud. We're proud people,” Nieves said.
“It doesn't take my focus off of the endgame — to get our country back to where it needs to be, financially, security and everything,” Nieves said. “Our country, I believe, was a lot better when he was in office, and safer.”
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