READING, Pa. – The day before Election Day, 17-year-old Carmen Hernandez held a cardboard sign with a Puerto Rican flag outside Trump’s rally in Reading, Pennsylvania, a city that is two-thirds Hispanic.

The banner read, “What you call garbage is our treasure.”

While Trump’s campaign quickly moved on from a comic book critique that called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage,” Kamala Harris’s campaign and other Democrats spent the final hours of the 2024 campaign making a joke of it in the nation’s largest battleground state.

Harris devoted much of her last full day on the campaign trail to reaching out to Latino voters in Pennsylvania, a swing state that Democrats see as part of their “blue wall” in the Electoral College. He made multiple stops at a place known as. 222 Corridor, After the highway connecting small cities and towns west and north of Philadelphia.

More than 315,000 people age 18 and older in Pennsylvania identify as Puerto Rican. And in a state where tiny margins can decide who gets 19 votes in the Electoral College, this community can be very important Both for Democrats trying to hold on to voters who have long supported their party, and for Republicans trying to make more inroads with that demographic.

Tony Hinchcliffe’s prank at Madison Square Garden rally cost Trump support popular Puerto Rican artist Nicky Jam and again earned Harris the support of Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny.

Reading Mayor Eddie Moran, the first Latino to hold office in his city’s 276-year history, said he found it ironic that the next mayor would be determined “potentially by Pennsylvania, even more so by Latinos.” Communities like Reading“by some of the people who have been least respected in the past for making this decision.”

“He continues to knock on our door and insult us in Reading, which is 70% Latino. “And about 30,000 of them are Puerto Ricans,” Moran said of Trump. “Yet he’s at a rally here today. How insulting is that?”

Carmen Hernandez, holding the sign outside Trump’s rally, said her entire Puerto Rican family will vote for Harris, even though she won’t be able to vote Tuesday.

“I’m here because I want to protect my man and be proud to defend him,” the high school senior said.

In Allentown, Harris touted her “longstanding commitment” to the candidate, whose residents are American citizens but have no say in the Electoral College. Fat Joe, a rapper of Puerto Rican descent, spoke shortly before Harris and urged voters to support the Democrat.

“This was no joke the other day at Madison Square Garden, ladies and gentlemen. This was no joke,” Fat Joe said. “My Latinas, where is your pride if you call Puerto Rico a garbage island?”

In Reading, a crowd gathered outside a Puerto Rican restaurant called Old San Juan Cafe to see the vice president. Flanked by Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Harris quizzed customers about the restaurant and what kind of food they should order, opting for a bag of bananas, cassava and rice.

“I’m very excited,” said Claudia Guzman, 52, who did not vote. “I never thought the vice president would come here. Tomorrow I will vote for Kamala. Women are coming to power.”

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, a Cuban American, spoke in Spanish to Trump supporters at a Reading rally on Monday, telling them that Spanish “sounds more passionate” and asking for their understanding while jokingly saying he was speaking Cuban.

“But the Boricuas will understand,” he said, referring to a term used for Puerto Ricans, “and the Dominicans too.”

“Trump is the only candidate who says from now on you will be a priority, you will not send jobs abroad, you will not send factories to other countries, you will not worry about the needs of people in other countries,” he said in Spanish.

Rubio did not directly address the comic’s joke, and neither did Trump. Instead, the former president praised his relationship with the candidate, saying, “We helped Puerto Rico more than anyone else.”

In September 2020, following criticism of the slow response to 2017’s Hurricane Maria, Trump issued $13 billion in aid to repair years of damage from the hurricane. It took two weeks for Trump to visit the island after the storm. He was criticized for throwing rolls of paper towels into the crowd.

Emilio Feliciano, 43, denied the joke. Although his family is Puerto Rican, he said he cares more about the economy and still plans to vote for Trump on Tuesday.

“Boo!” We have bigger fish to fry. “I will never cry about Puerto Rico being called garbage,” he said at the Reading event. “Will the border be safe? Will you reduce crime? That’s what I care about.”

But Luis Colon, a 45-year-old Puerto Rican living in Reading, attended the same rally even as he planned to vote for Harris. He said the comments at the Trump rally were “a disgrace.”

“I’m just going to see the stupidity, the nonsense. I’m not voting for Trump; I don’t support Trump. Trump isn’t going after Latinos; he is against us. “Trump is going to throw us under the bus,” Colon said.

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Associated Press writers Dan Merica in Washington and Darlene Superville in Reading, Pennsylvania, contributed to this report.