The Democratic candidate for the White House, Vice President Kamala Harris, and her Republican rival, former President Donald Trump, visited this Monday two Latin-majority cities in the decisive state of Pennsylvania, in search of the Hispanic vote that can decant tomorrow’s elections.

The same-day visit of Harris in Allentown and Trump in Reading, two neighboring municipalities, comes after the controversy over the racist joke of a comedian at a Republican rally in New York who described Puerto Rico as a “garbage island.”

“The United States is ready for a new beginning and is ready for a new path to follow in which we see our fellow citizens not as an enemy but as a neighbor,” said the vice president during her rally.

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris seek the Latin vote

Harris was accompanied by the Puerto Rican-born rapper Fat Joe, who criticized Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric and recalled the controversy that the Republican unleashed during his first term when he went to Puerto Rico to throw handkerchiefs at the victims of Hurricane Maria in 2017.

“I’m talking to some undecided Puerto Ricans, especially in Pennsylvania. What else do (the Republicans) have to do to show them who they are?” Fat Joe said.

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For his part, after passing through North Carolina, Trump gave an electoral rally in Reading, with a half-full capacity, where he reiterated that if he wins tomorrow he will launch “the largest deportation of criminals in the entire history of the United States.”

The New York tycoon was preceded by Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who addressed the public in Spanish. “I didn’t understand a damn word of what I was saying. But it’s great,” Trump said about his partner.

Key state

The 19 electoral votes provided by Pennsylvania, the largest of the seven hinge states, are the jewel in the crown of Tuesday’s elections, in which the polls draw such a tight scenario that making predictions is impossible.

This state of the country’s former industrial belt traditionally voted Democratic until Trump turned it around in 2016 and, four years later, Joe Biden won the Republican by a narrow margin of 80,000 votes.

All eyes are on the Hispanic vote since Pennsylvania has doubled in two decades the Latino population to 620,000 registered to vote. More than half of the population of Allentown and Reading is Latino, mostly Puerto Rican, followed by Dominicans.

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Controversy over joke against Puerto Rico

Although Trump has not apologized for the joke of comedian Tony Hinchcliffe at his New York rally, a few days later he visited Allentown and promised: “I will bring the best future to Puerto Ricans and Hispanics.”

The controversy grew even more when Biden responded to the joke by describing Trump’s followers as “trash,” words that the White House qualified and from which Kamala Harris discacated herself.

The Democratic candidate will close her campaign tonight with a big concert in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), accompanied by Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin, while Trump will put an end to the campaign from Gran Rapids, in the also decisive state of Michigan.