Pennsylvania’s Latino Belt

The Hispanic population is skyrocketing across the country, and Pennsylvania is no exception. With over 600,000 eligible Latino voters in the pivotal Keystone State, an emerging “Latino Belt” is reshaping politics and is likely to make a difference in a presidential contest that was won in Pennsylvania by just 82,000 votes in 2020. 

Donald Trump leads Kamala Harris by 0.3 points in Pennsylvania, according to the RCP Average. 

It's easy to think of Pennsylvania as, in the words of political strategist James Carville, two large cities with Alabama in the middle. Pittsburgh and Philadelphia sandwich rural Pennsylvania, which is in many areas culturally akin to Appalachia or the Deep South. But a growing Latino population along the “222 Corridor” – named for its proximity to the U.S. Highway of the same name – is forcing major political parties to recalibrate.

In recent history, Latinos have emerged as a key portion of the Democratic voting bloc. In 2016, Hillary Clinton and the Democrats won the Latino vote by a margin of about +40 (68%-28%), according to NY Times/Siena College data. 

Four years later, in 2020, Trump shored up his support in this demographic and narrowed Democrats’ winning margin to +26 (62%-36%). This national trend was mirrored in Pennsylvania.

Now, a New York TImes/Siena College nationwide survey of likely Latino voters shows Kamala Harris’ support among the demographic to be shrinking even more. She leads Trump by just +19 nationwide (56%-37%), suggesting Democratic support among Latinos is waning even as Trump espouses a commanding message against illegal immigration.

Trump has benefitted from growing discontent among the Latino population with high living costs. Nearly three in 10 Latino voters say the economy is the most important issue determining their vote in November, far exceeding any other issue. Abortion was ranked the top issue by 15% of Latino voters, ahead of immigration at 10%.

In cities like Hazelton, Pennsylvania, where the Latino population has jumped from 5% to 60% since the turn of the century, Latino voters say their values simply align more closely with those of the Republican party. 

“[Latinos] don’t have to shift their values,” Republican congressional candidate Maria Montero told Politico. “Their values are already aligned with Republicans. The shift really is to have their voter registration match who they are.”

Polling data bears out her point. Latino cultural conservativism has led some members of the demographic to be turned off by certain Democratic Party positions such an embrace of transgender issues and an increasingly liberal stance on abortion.

There is also the fact that most Hispanics seem not to mind Trump’s rhetoric on immigration. More than one-third of Latino voters say they support building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and deporting illegal immigrants, according to the New York Times survey. The majority (68%) of Latinos living in the country are U.S.-born.

Trump spoke Monday about immigration and a host of other issues at a town hall in Oaks, Pennsylvania, while Harris campaigned on the other side of the state in Erie. In his  town hall, hosted by South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Trump blasted away at Harris over the border and national security as he took questions from preselected attendees. (After multiple crowd members fainted, Trump decided to stop answering questions. “Let’s not do any more questions. Let’s just listen to music. … Who the hell wants to hear questions, right?”) The event ended with Trump standing onstage swaying to music and occasionally speaking for over 30 minutes. 

In Erie, Harris revived a favorite tactic of the Biden campaign, calling Trump “unhinged” and suggesting a second Trump presidency would be dangerous to the republic. Harris showed clips of Trump threatening to jail his opponents and describing some fellow Americans as “the enemy from within.”

“Donald Trump is increasingly unstable and unhinged. And he is out for unchecked power. That’s what he’s looking for,” Harris said Monday night.

Alongside her fresh lines, Harris released a new ad – “” – showing footage of Trump making threats and featuring two former Trump national security advisers who say Americans should be concerned about a second Trump presidency.

The ad was just a drop in the bucket of Democratic spending in the Keystone State. The Harris campaign has spent nearly $50 million on television ads in Pennsylvania, while Republicans have spent almost $52 million, according to the firm AdImpact. This is the most for either party in the seven battleground states, pointing to the allure of Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral college votes.

Although both campaigns are clearly focused on Pennsylvania as a whole – Latino voters make up just 5% of the Pennsylvania electorate – they are also making moves to appeal specifically to the demographic.

The Trump campaign recently teamed up with the Republican National Committee and Pennsylvania GOP to open a “Latino Americans for Trump” office, while Harris spoke directly to the Latino population alongside Puerto Rican actors Liza Colón-Zayas and Anthony Ramos in a mid-September rally in Allentown, a city whose population has a higher Latino percentage (54%) than Los Angeles.

The candidates clearly recognize the power of the Latino vote in a must-win state – as do its residents.

“Right now, with the growing Latino population and the influx of Latinos moving into cities such as Reading, it’s definitely an opportunity for the Latino vote to change the outcome of an election,” Reading Mayor Eddie Moran, the city’s first Latino leader, told NBC News. “It’s not a secret anymore.”