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Could a racist ‘joke’ about Puerto Rico lose Donald Trump the election?

Source: Kamala Harris

If Donald Trump loses the key swing state of Pennsylvania by a small margin, then the Democratic Party may have an unlikely source to thank – a MAGA comedian who made a racist “joke” in New York.

Tony Hinchcliffe, a successful ‘roast comedian’ and podcaster, was a speaker at Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden when he commented that Puerto Rico was a “floating island of garbage”.

“There’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now,” Hinchliffe said during his 11-minute set.

“I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”

He also made jokes — to little reaction from the 20,000 people in attendance — about Latinos failing to use birth control and racially charged comments about Jewish and black people.

Why it matters

David Smith, an associate professor at the US Studies Centre, explained to The New Daily why this failed joke could have such an impact on the election.

“I’ve seen estimates that between four and six per cent of the electorate in Pennsylvania are Puerto Rican and the state is usually decided by less than a percentage point,” he said.

“They tend to be very defensive of Puerto Rico considering a long history of prejudice against them and the joke that Hinchcliffe told is the kind you may have heard in the 1940s or ’50s.”

Pennsylvania is home to more than 470,000 Puerto Ricans, alongside 133,000 in North Carolina, 124,000 in Georgia and between 50,000 and 60,000 in Wisconsin, Michigan and Arizona.

Puerto Rico democrats

Nearly one million Puerto Ricans live in key swing states. Photo: Getty

Both the 2016 and 2020 elections were decided by the smallest of margins in these states and any serious movement could swing it towards one of the candidates.

Puerto Ricans are American citizens, but cannot vote in the election unless they reside in one of the 50 states because of its status as a territory.

Backpedalling

Since the rally, and likely recognising the potential political fallout, Trump’s team made an unprecedented move with a senior Trump adviser quickly saying that the joke does not reflect the view of the campaign.

Other Republicans quickly moved to quell any damage.

JD Vance, however, didn’t seem to get the memo and instead defended it and claimed that Americans “need to stop getting offended at everything”.

“Maybe I’m old fashioned, or maybe I just grew up with a grandmother who had an especially foul mouth,” Vance said.

“You know what I do when I think a joke is dumb or not funny? I don’t laugh.”

Fallout

The fallout from the incident has been swift: Non-partisan Puerto Rican groups have been urging members to oppose Trump and protests were held outside Trump’s rally at Allentown, a majority-Latino city in Pennsylvania.

Puerto Rico’s largest newspaper also quickly endorsed Harris.

Smith said Trump has cut into Harris’s lead with Latino voters, who are often socially conservative and find Trump appealing, but his campaign recognises how damaging the comments could prove.

“It’s not too different from Trump claiming Haitians are eating people’s pets in Ohio. I don’t find that any less offensive than the joke Hinchcliffe made,” he said.

“You can see the potential damage by how much the campaign is distancing itself.”

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