Puerto Rico Joke Reverberates in Crucial Pennsylvania

Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe's joke comparing Puerto Rico to an "island of garbage" has given Donald Trump roughly a half-million problems in the swing state of Pennsylvania. That, reports Politico, is the number of Puerto Ricans who live in the state, where the election is expected to be decided by a razor-thin margin. And by the sound of it, a good many of them are incensed by the joke delivered by the pro-Trump comic at the former president's weekend rally at Madison Square Garden.

• Reaction: "It's spreading like wildfire through the community," Norberto Dominguez, a Democratic precinct captain in Allentown, tells the outlet. It's not just Democrats, however: A nonpartisan Puerto Rican group drafted a letter urging members to oppose Trump, and many were expected to protest at Trump's rally Tuesday in Allentown, per Politico.

• In Philadelphia: The BBC hones in on Philadelphia in particular, which has a population of 90,000 Puerto Ricans. "The campaign just hurt itself, so much—it's crazy to me," says local resident Ivonne Torres Miranda, who has problems with both candidates.
• Vance: On Monday, Trump running mate JD Vance suggested people were overreacting. "Maybe it's a stupid, racist joke, as you said," he told reporters, per the New York Times. "Maybe it's not. I haven't seen it." Either way, "we have to stop getting so offended at every little thing in the United States of America."
• Trump: A spokesman quickly distanced the Trump campaign from the joke, but the former president himself didn't address the backlash when discussing his rally on Tuesday, notes Politico. "There was love in the room," he said. "The love in that room was breathtaking."
• Big picture: In an analysis, the Hill finds that for the Trump campaign, this is an "October surprise of its own making." It notes that beyond Pennsylvania, tens of thousands of Puerto Rican residents live in other swing states.

(More Election 2024 stories.)