As far as polling goes, 2024 has been looking like one of the best years for GOP efforts to win over minority voters in the last 40 years. At least, it was until Sunday night.
Donald Trump’s rally in New York City on Sunday — when comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage,” said Latinos “love making babies” and claimed they “don’t pull out,” in addition to business influencer Grant Cardone saying Kamala Harris and her “pimp handlers” would “destroy our country” — has suddenly put much of the GOP’s hard work attracting minority voters at risk, Republican operatives told NOTUS.
One GOP operative told NOTUS that Trump is “guilty by association.”
“There are going to be some people who are turned off,” this person said. “There’s going to be people who’ve been in the party for a long time turned off.”
A Florida-based strategist close to the Trump campaign told NOTUS that Hinchcliffe had to be “smart enough” to understand that “mainstream media is looking for any scab to pick.”
“We all got to keep our heads down, keep our foot off the gas and understand that now it’s not just what message you’re delivering or what you’re saying,” this strategist said. “Whether it was a friendly audience or not, the media is looking for any little thing to scrutinize.”
Mike Madrid, a never-Trump GOP strategist, said he’s heard from fellow GOP consultants who are particularly distressed by the Puerto Rico comments.
“Trump may have done what Harris’ campaign hasn’t been able to do — make him lose Latino voters,” Madrid said. “He has been more of a hindrance to a diversifying party. He’s not helping it. It’s happening despite him, not because of him.”
And Bishara Bahbah, who leads Trump’s effort to court Arab American voters, told NOTUS he spoke to Dr. Massad Boulos — the father of one of Trump’s sons-in-law and also a leader in the same effort — after the rally, and Boulos assured him that the racist comments weren’t “the position of President Trump.”
But Bahbah is concerned the damage has already been done and that Trump’s advantage with Arab American voters could be in jeopardy.
“Some people keep repeating and posting the same thing, and it’s tiring. And I keep responding,” Bahbah said of Arab American voters on social media and in WhatsApp groups. “It reached a point where one of my friends was posting and posting, and I reached out to him and said, ‘You know what? You’re not doing anybody a service. If Harris wins, the genocide continues.’”
Even Republicans on Capitol Hill are sounding the alarm.
“My mom was born and raised in Puerto Rico. It’s a beautiful island with a rich culture and an integral part of the USA,” Republican Rep. Anthony D’Esposito said on X. “The only thing that’s ‘garbage’ was a bad comedy set. Stay on message.”
Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar went on Fox News to rebuke Hinchcliffe’s remarks.
“Look, he’s an imbecile. He’s an idiot,” she said. “And I was with the Trump camp right when it was happening, and they were responding back to me that they did not understand what this guy was saying.”
And Rep. Carlos Gimenez didn’t hold back.
“This is not a joke. It’s completely classless & in poor taste,” he wrote on X. “@TonyHinchcliffe clearly isn’t funny & definitely doesn’t reflect my values or those of the Republican Party.”
These Republicans may have a point.
Nicky Jam, a Puerto Rican singer who campaigned for Trump in September, has rescinded his endorsement for the former president.
“The reason I supported Donald Trump was because I thought he was the best for the economy in the United States where a lot of Latinos live, a lot of immigrants who are suffering because of the economy,” he said in a video. “Never in my life did I think that one month later there would be a comedian who would criticize my country and speak poorly of my country.”
A senior Harris campaign official said Thursday that fallout from the Madison Square Garden event has created an organic explosion of support for the Democrats. When Jam withdrew his public support for Trump after the rally and signed on with Harris, it made an impact in a campaign where both candidates are desperate to reach remaining pockets of undecided voters.
“We’re seeing that break through,” the official said. “We’re seeing how important that is to reach voters and to be very clear about the difference between these two leaders. I think that’s a big part of how we’re closing out strong.”
A big part of the problem for Trump is that the comments could play a role in Pennsylvania, which is the most critical state for both candidates. Politico reported earlier this week that the comments were “spreading like wildfire,” and the state’s nearly 500,000 Puerto Rican voters could very well swing the election if they overwhelmingly turn against Trump.
While the comments are too fresh to see a significant reaction in polling, the race has clearly tightened in the final week, with Harris narrowly leading Trump in Michigan and Wisconsin, and neck and neck in Pennsylvania. An NAACP poll conducted in October shows support for Trump among Black men declining in the final days of the campaign and has also been making the rounds in Democratic operative group chats.
A spokesperson for the Republican National Committee called the MSG rally “historic” and referenced clips from ABC and CNN where anchors highlighted the rally’s enormous attendance.
“President Trump has built the broadest coalition in political history because Americans of all backgrounds know only he can fix what Kamala Harris broke,” RNC spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement.
This cycle, Trump has been intentional about expanding his base into communities of color. He capitalized on general discontent with the economy and the crisis at the southern border. And the strategy was working.
Not only have many minority voters shifted rightward on policy, but many have simply stopped caring as much about the GOP’s missteps with racist rhetoric. Polling shows one in four Black men supporting Trump, a 6% increase from 2020. Forty percent of Latino voters also back the former president. And almost half of Arab Americans are on board too.
Latino GOP strategist Charlie Gerow told NOTUS that Trump’s strategy had been working.
“This is a campaign built around strength,” he said. “Trump is strong, and Kamala Harris is weak.”
Trump has also physically gone to where voters of color gather. He has spoken at Black churches and at the Black Conservative Federation’s gala. He’s hosted rallies in towns with significant Latino populations and visited the southern border many times.
Of course, Democrats think those efforts are a fig leaf for Trump’s controversial rhetoric and policies.
Earlier this month, a spokesperson for the Harris campaign accused Trump of using Black men more “as a backdrop than addressing Black men’s concerns.”
Following Sunday’s MSG rally, the Harris campaign has tried to emphasize that Democrats are the inclusive party. This week, the campaign got Jennifer Lopez, a megastar in Hispanic communities, to stump for the vice president. And Democrats have been flooding email inboxes with stories about how Trump is missing the mark with communities of color.
Meanwhile, Republicans have tried to put Hinchcliffe’s comments behind them and make a much bigger deal out of President Joe Biden seeming to call Trump’s supporters “garbage.”
On Wednesday, Trump drew attention to the comments by riding around in a garbage truck and reiterated that he didn’t know anything about Hinchcliffe and that he’s fond of Puerto Rico.
“I love Puerto Rico and Puerto Rico loves me,” Trump said from the garbage truck.
Meanwhile, Republicans have also just tried to move past the controversy.
“That page is behind us, we are thinking about the campaign now,” Jaime Florez, a spokesperson for the RNC and Trump campaign’s Hispanic outreach, told NOTUS on Tuesday. “Trump said a few hours ago that he did not know the comedian and that the comments did not reflect his campaign.”
And while some Republicans were quick to call out the comments, other GOP lawmakers have brushed off concerns.
One Republican in House leadership told NOTUS they were focused on “working my butt off knocking doors and campaigning.”
“Not concerned,” this Republican said in a text. “If you can’t beat us on the issues, you have to manufacture something.”
And Rep. Tim Burchett, never one to shy away from a contrarian take, told NOTUS he thought the comments would actually help Republicans.
“I think it ends up a plus,” he said in a text.
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Tinashe Chingarande, Samuel Larreal are NOTUS reporters and Allbritton Journalism Institute fellows. Ben T.N. Mause, a NOTUS reporter and Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow, and Evan McMorris-Santoro, a reporter at NOTUS, contributed to this report.