The Republican National Committee on Wednesday opened a field office of Latino Americans for Trump in Berks County, Pennsylvania, which also includes former Puerto Rico Gov. Luis Fortuño and Republican candidates Dave McCormick is on the platform for U.S. Senate, and is appealing to Hispanic voters on the issue of borders and inflation.
The office in Reading was inaugurated a few days later. Trump campaign has relaunched its Hispanic coalition, which is committed to re-electing former President Trump this November. Founded as Latinos for Trump during the 2020 election, the campaign announced the relaunch on Sunday ahead of Trump’s rally in Las Vegas.
Trump loses battleground Pennsylvania President Biden by just 1.17% of the vote in 2020. In Burke County, where the RNC field office just opened, Trump beat Biden by about 17,000 votes.
“We wanted Latinos to identify with Americans,” Jaime Florez, the Trump campaign’s Hispanic communications director, told Fox News in an interview about the relaunch. “We are Americans. We’ve been in this country. We vote in the country. We’re citizens. … We don’t live here for a couple of years, and then we go back to our countries. No, we’re here to stay.
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“President Reagan used to say that Hispanics are Republicans. They just don’t know it. Well, we’re finding out,” Florez said. “Democrats took us for granted for too long and made promises to us that they never kept.”
One woman who attended the event told Fox News Digital she was becoming a citizen and voting for Trump. (Fox News)
National surveys indicate that young, black, and Hispanic voters are embracing the Republican Party amid inflation concerns. A Fox News poll conducted in May 2024 found that 17% of Hispanic voters said the economy is their only deciding issue in the 2024 election.
Pennsylvania Senate candidate Dave McCormick addressed voters at the event. (Fox News)
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From politicians to Pennsylvanians, two issues were most talked about at the RNC office inauguration on Wednesday – economy and border.
“Everybody is unhappy. Really,” former Puerto Rico Gov. Luis Fortuño told Fox News in an exclusive interview. “Most people are unhappy, and they want change. The Republican Party is the only party that can bring that change, to make sure we can keep more of our hard-earned money, we can protect our families and our communities, and we can stand strong as a country.”
Fortuno emphasized the need to elect Republicans on every ballot this November and urged Pennsylvanians in English and Spanish to vote for U.S. Senate candidate Dave McCormick. Emphasizing his business experience, Fortuno said McCormick understands the inflation Pennsylvanians feel on a daily basis.
A Pennsylvania voter spoke to Fox News about Latino Americans’ inauguration for Trump. (Fox News)
Speaking to reporters after his inauguration remarks, McCormick said he is striving to have every Pennsylvanian vote and looks forward to the opportunity to connect with the Latino community around shared policy concerns.
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,“Republican values align very much with those in the Latino community,” McCormick told reporters. “It’s basically the idea of creating an economy and creating an environment that allows people to pursue the American dream. Hardworking, hard-working, wanting the best things for their children and wanting an economy where small businesses can prosper and create jobs, where they can raise their children in safe communities. I think that aligns very well with the principles of the Republican Party.”
Pennsylvanians are seeing Latino Americans moving to the Republican Party.
,“The Democrats have cheated them all these years,” Kathy, a retired voter from Reading, told Fox News on Wednesday. “They’ve been told, ‘Oh, we’ll do this for you. We’ll do that for you.’ And they’re just using them. They don’t do anything for them, the minorities.”
Regina Mauro, District 157 candidate for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, echoed Kathy’s sentiment that Democrats have let Latinos down in an interview before her office inauguration.
Donald Trump will arrive at Trump Tower on May 30, 2024, having been found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. (Felipe Ramales for Fox News Digital)
,They see the weakness of the current leadership,” Mauro told Fox News about the political shift in Latino voters. “Latinos, we like strong leaders. So, whether it’s domestic situation or foreign policy, economically, we are extremely disappointed. … We need peace. We need more stability”
Mauro said common sense is driving “Trumplicans,” whom he described as minority voters in the former Democratic Party, to turn away from President Biden and embrace former President Trump.
,I’m a first-generation American,” Mauro said of the frustration felt by legal immigrants. “My parents, my whole family came from Cuba. A lot of Hispanics resent having a line for legal immigrants, where they spend a lot of money and years to do the right thing, do the honorable thing as you would for any other country. Just to see Democrat politicians serving foreigners coming across the border to just, in essence, skip the line.”
President Biden speaks at the Abbotts Creek Community Center during an event to promote his economic agenda on October 18, 2024 in Raleigh, NC. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
Hispanic voters have seen their share of presidential campaigns compete for their votes this election cycle, as Trump, Biden and even Robert F. Kennedy Jr. compete for young, Black and Hispanic votes. The Biden campaign launched Latinos Con Biden-Harris in March to “connect and mobilize Latino voters, communities and leaders across the country.”
Former President Trump will attend a rally in Las Vegas on June 9, 2024. (Eric Thayer, The Washington Post, via Getty Images)
“Donald Trump does not care about the Latino community,” Biden-Harris 2024 Pennsylvania Hispanic Media Press Secretary Nemesis Mora said in a statement to Fox News on the opening of the “Latino Americans for Trump” office.
“He has spent his entire adult life demonizing us, and throughout his tenure he has made our communities worse. … The truth is that Donald Trump has failed Latinos and our families, while President Biden has actually delivered real results for Pennsylvanians, like lowering health care costs, creating good-paying jobs that have resulted in Latino unemployment being at an all-time low, and making historic investments that have led to Latino small businesses opening at the fastest rate in a decade. That’s why Pennsylvania’s Latinos will send Trump back to Mar-a-Lago this November.”
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The Biden campaign has 24 offices and more than a hundred staffers in Pennsylvania. President Biden and Vice President Harris Trump visited Pennsylvania more than 10 times in the first five months of the year. Trump has visited Pennsylvania three times this year, most recently in April ahead of the primary election, where he endorsed McCormick.
