In hard-fought Pennsylvania, fast-growing Hispanic communities present a test for Harris and Trump

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — The sun was creeping over the horizon on a recent morning in Pennsylvania’s erstwhile steel country, but inside a house next to two radio towers, Victor Martinez stood with a microphone, ready to broadcast his views to thousands of Spanish-speaking listeners.

“Señores, abran los ojos,” Spanish for “Gentlemen, open your eyes,” he said, after playing a recent interview where former President Donald Trump suggested he could deploy the U.S. military to deal with the opposition. “Three weeks before Election Day, this guy has the nerve to say that we should use the army to put what he calls ‘crazy liberal Democrats’ in prison.”

Pennsylvania is arguably the hardest fought of the battleground states and happens to have one of the fastest-growing Hispanic communities in the country, in what is known as the 222 Corridor, after the highway that connects small cities and towns west and north of Philadelphia. It’s fertile ground for both Democrats and Republicans to test their strength among Latinos in a state where small margins decide who gets 20 electoral votes. It’s a place where Democratic nominee Kamala Harris can prove that her party still commands a large share of the demographic’s support, and where Trump's campaign has been working to gain ground.

“This is the epicenter for Latino voters in Pennsylvania,” said Martinez, who is of Puerto Rican descent and lives in and broadcasts his show from Allentown. “I like the fact that Kamala Harris has to keep sending people over here to listen to us and talk to us. I like it. I like the fact that JD Vance has to keep coming back. I like it, because that means that they have to pay attention to us.”

Pennsylvania’s Latino eligible voter population has more than doubled since 2000 from 208,000 to 579,000, according to the Latino Data Hub from the University of California, Los Angeles' Latino Policy & Politics Institute. The population in cities like Allentown and Reading is now more than half Hispanic, with a majority being of Puerto Rican descent and a sizable portion of Dominican origin.

Martinez also streams his show on YouTube and Facebook, using a large screen with an image of the White House as a backdrop for his segment on politics, which has become the highest-rated portion of his four-hour radio show.

Despite his public stance against Trump, Martinez says he simply wants more Latinos to get out and vote to start building more of an influential bloc, the same way Cubans have done in Florida, where he used to live and where he shaped his political views. He says he liked former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, both Republicans.

“I don’t want politicians to think that they have us in the bag. No, they should be fighting for us,” he said. “I’m from Florida, so I’m very well aware of the power the Cubans cultivated in South Florida. They got that power because they vote.”

In Pennsylvania, roughly half of all requested mail and absentee ballots had been cast by Monday. Of those, 63% had been returned by Democrats with about 27% returned by Republicans, according to Associated Press election research. In recent elections, Democrats have been more likely to participate in advance voting, while Republicans have favored voting in-person on Election Day.

Democrats also are returning more mail and absentee ballots in the two counties that concentrate the most Hispanics in the state. In Lehigh, home to Allentown, Democrats accounted for about 62% of returned mail and absentee ballots with Republicans at 27%. In Berks County, home to Reading, Democrats accounted for about 60% of the total with Republicans at about 31%.

The Trump campaign opened a Latino outreach office in the region and won the endorsements of popular Puerto Rican reggaeton artists such as Anuel AA and Nicky Jam.

“President Trump has always been about trying to influence the Latino population. It’s not the usual ‘oh we need Latinos.’ He appreciates our work and sees our potential,” said Marcela Diaz-Myers, a Colombian immigrant who heads a new task force the Pennsylvania GOP formed to do Hispanic outreach.

Trump lost Pennsylvania to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020, after winning the state and the presidency in 2016. Nationwide, about 6 in 10 Hispanic voters supported Biden in 2020, according to AP VoteCast, a broad survey of the electorate.

Harris' campaign is hoping their network of surrogates, including Martinez, Puerto Rican artists and other popular Latino figures, helps them hold Biden’s Latino lead, or at least stunts Trump’s efforts to make inroads within this group.

The mayor of Allentown, Matt Tuerk, has been knocking on doors for the Democratic vice president and sees Harris' campaign resonating deeply with older Latino voters and particularly women, who often tell him things like “I will vote for ‘la mujer,’” Spanish for “the woman.”

Tuerk, who is of Cuban descent, says the Trump campaign believes it has some traction with younger Latino men, and he warned the Harris campaign that he was hearing more of Trump's digital ads airing at the city’s barbershops where they play Bachata and merengue, musical genres from the Dominican Republic.

One of Trump’s most popular Hispanic surrogates is Robert Unanue, the CEO of Goya, which produces many food products considered staples in Latino homes. Unanue has been courting Latino voters in swing states such as Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona and North Carolina.

Unanue says some Latinos are against high arrivals of immigrants because many have struggled for years to legalize their status and have spent effort and money to become U.S. citizens. He said many do not think Trump would deport those who have been here a long time and have no criminal record, even though the GOP nominee has vowed to conduct the largest deportation operation in U.S. history.

“Trump is not going to deport la tia, or la sobrina or la prima,” Unanue said, using the Spanish words for aunt, niece and cousin. “He is going to focus first on the criminals and second on the deadbeats, people coming to this country to take from us who work hard.”

Trump regularly rails against immigrants, saying they are taking jobs and bringing violent crime to the U.S. He has said those accused of murder have “bad genes.” He has suggested he would use the National Guard, and possibly the military, to target between 15 million and 20 million people for deportation, though the government estimated in 2022 there were 11 million migrants living in the U.S. without permanent legal permission.

Along Allentown's Seventh Street, or what locals call Calle Siete, there is a mix of Latino-owned restaurants and grocery stores and Dominican beauty salons.

Franklin Encarnacion, 58, of the Dominican Republic, says he sees a lot of support for Harris in this neighborhood.

“She is a woman. She knows what we need in our homes. She knows that things are getting expensive,” Encarnacion said, adding he felt Trump has focused too much on saying he wants to deport immigrants.

On the same commercial strip, Miguel Cleto, a pastor from the Dominican Republic, said he thinks Democrats have handled immigration poorly, and they are on the wrong side of the abortion issue.

“Donald Trump is the only solution for this country to go back to where it was,” he said.

Radio host and owner of radio station La Mega 101.7 FM Victor Martinez on the air in Allentown, Pa., Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Ryan Collerd)

Radio host and owner of radio station La Mega 101.7 FM Victor Martinez on the air in Allentown, Pa., Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Ryan Collerd)

Radio host and owner of radio station La Mega 101.7 FM Victor Martinez on the air in Allentown, Pa., Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Ryan Collerd)

Dominican American voter Franklin Encarnacion, 58, who plans to vote for Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, poses in Allentown, Pa., Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Ryan Collerd)

Dominican American voter Franklin Encarnacion, 58, who plans to vote for Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, poses in Allentown, Pa., Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Ryan Collerd)

Radio station La Mega 101.7 FM in Allentown, Pa., Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Ryan Collerd)

Radio host and owner of radio station La Mega 101.7 FM Victor Martinez speaks on the air in Allentown, Pa., Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Ryan Collerd)

Radio host and owner of radio station La Mega 101.7 FM Victor Martinez on the air in Allentown, Pa., Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Ryan Collerd)

WASHINGTON (AP) — As America hurtles towards the 2024 election, the road to the presidency passes through Georgia, one of the seven battleground states considered vital to the fortunes of anyone who wants to win the White House. Georgia also is one of the few southern states considered up for grabs, having gone to President Joe Biden in 2020 after a run of six-straight wins there by Republican presidential candidates.

Four years after Biden won the state by fewer than 12,000 votes, the campaigns of Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have poured financial and tactical resources into the state based on the theory that the outcome may be determined as much by who doesn't vote as who does.

The question is whether their sales pitches will have the ear of everyone. For people at the lower rungs of the economic ladder, there are often more basic priorities. Bibb County made a good test area with its high poverty rate, diverse demographics and large number of seemingly eligible voters who stayed home in 2020. Interviews with dozens of women and some men on the lower socioeconomic level showed there is a possible relationship between poverty and turnout that candidates are working to overcome.

More than 150 million people voted but even with 2020’s record number of ballots cast, more than 75 million people eligible to vote did not cast ballots, according to a study by the Center for Inclusive Democracy at the University of Southern California. In Bibb County, about 47,000 people who were eligible to vote, defined as legal citizens 18 or older, did not.

Other data from AP VoteCast, a survey of both voters and nonvoters, determined that a percentage of those nonvoters would be more impoverished. The survey showed that nonvoters in 2020 tended to be poorer, younger, less educated, unmarried and minorities. The data, collected by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, also found that among voters in 2020, 15% reported having a household income under $25,000 in the previous year, compared with roughly 3 in 10 nonvoters. Put those characteristics against a population of 27 million adults who live below poverty, according to the Census, and the figures suggest that people on the lower rungs of the economic ladder probably make up a significant subset of all nonvoters.

A majority of Bibb County residents are minorities and over 60% are unmarried. Four in 10 are younger than 30 and nearly half only have a high school education. Just over 60% of students in Bibb County schools are eligible for free and reduced-price meals with 36 of the schools offering free and reduced-price meals to all students, said a spokeswoman for the Georgia Department of Education.

Kathy McCollum, president of the Middle Georgia Community Food Bank, said the poverty rate is 18.5% in the 24 counties served by her organization, including Bibb. She said donations come in from retail grocers, growers, manufacturers and processors. Financial donations rose dramatically in 2020 during the pandemic but have fallen off. Food from her organization is distributed to over 200 partner agencies, which are nonprofits or churches that distribute to struggling residents and families.

The reasons people offered were varied. Some were prevented because of past criminal justice problems. Others had childcare and transportation concerns. Early voting, especially for those with unstable housing situations, could be hard because of address requirements. And some didn't see how discussions about money for home buyers, college debt forgiveness and tax cuts for the wealthy pertained to them. Linda Solomon, 58, said her concern is stretching her Social Security disability far enough to cover her apartment rent and utilities. She relies on food pantries and organizations like Mother's Nest in Macon to get her through the tight periods. She stopped voting years ago when she decided her circumstances stayed the same through multiple administrations.

It is a nonprofit that began in 2022. Its founder and executive director, Sabrina Friday, remembered her own experiences as a teen mother with little help and saw the need. The organization provides a variety of services, including food, clothing, baby furniture and classes ranging from self-care to infant CPR and dental clinics. She stresses civic engagement but "when you are sleeping in a hotel and not sure where your next meal is coming from and your car has been seized, voting is not high on the list of priorities.”

LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, said she thinks there’s beginning to be discussion about basic pocketbook issues, like food costs and housing. But, there needs to be more to entice people who are ignored by society to see voting as something that can solve their systemic problems. The stock market and unemployment “are not an indicator of how well people are doing.”

Janiyah Thomas, a Trump campaign official, said get-out-the-vote efforts are focused on low-propensity voters. She added they are also utilizing volunteers and using traditional canvassing methods as well as TikTok and outside groups.

The Harris campaign has an office in Macon staffed by six full-time team members who are focused on reaching communities throughout the region. That includes canvassing and door-knocking in lower-income and other areas. A campaign official said there also is a large rural presence in Georgia that skews towards lower-income residents.

Linda Solomon, a client at Mother's Nest in Macon, Ga., poses for a photo on June 22, 2024. She does not intend to vote because she feels the lives of the poor don't improve regardless of what party controls the White House and government. (AP Photo/Gary Fields)

In this image from video, Sabrina Friday, the executive director of Mother's Nest in Macon, Ga., talks during an interview June 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Gary Fields)

Karimah McFarlane, a Howard University graduate and owner of Buckhead Art & Company in Atlanta, poses for a photo on Sept. 10, 2024. She hosted a viewing party of the presidential debate between Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, (AP Photo/Gary Fields)