NAZARETH, Pa. — Pennsylvania Democrats believe comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s insulting comments about Puerto Rico at Donald Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden on October 27, they are already helping to mobilize Puerto Rican voters who might otherwise have stayed home in the swing state.

Among the seven battleground states that will decide the winner of Tuesday’s election between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, Pennsylvania has the largest population of Puerto Ricans. The Keystone State’s Puerto Rican population of nearly 500,000 is concentrated in North Philadelphia, the Lehigh Valley, Reading and Hazleton.

On the same day that Hinchcliffe’s remarks shook the political firmament, Harris was campaigning among the Puerto Rican community in North Philadelphia.

“I’ve heard directly from the Puerto Rican community how offended they are” by Hinchcliffe’s remarks, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) said Saturday as he campaigned for Anna Thomas, a Democrat running for office. representing the state of Pennsylvania. “I think it has awakened the community in a way that is going to make it even more numerous for Kamala Harris.”

Pressed to explain why these remarks might resonate with voters who are not already firmly in a corner, when so many other Trump-related or Trump-related comments have failed to harm him, Shapiro said: “That’s my feeling from all over the state: that this broke through and it resonated in the community, where it made them say, ‘Well, wait a minute, this guy’s not not for us. This guy doesn’t respect us.

State Rep. Josh Siegel (D), who represents Allentown, a city that is a hub of Puerto Rico, and Lamont McClure, Northampton County Executive, had similar assessments during the campaign event in SATURDAY.

“It had an undeniable impact on the ground here in the Lehigh Valley,” Siegel said.

Reached by phone Saturday, Philadelphia City Council member Quetcy Lozada (D), who is Puerto Rican, said her office had received messages from people who voted for Trump and wanted to know if they could change their vote. (They can’t.)

Lozada, who accompanied Harris to a Puerto Rican restaurant while campaigning in North Philadelphia, also heard from many voters that their friends and relatives were leaning toward Trump or didn’t plan to vote until ‘having heard of Hinchcliffe’s insult. It’s a marked change from the mixed results Lozada had days knocking on doors for Harris in parts of North Philadelphia before Hinchcliffe’s remarks.

“I saw a huge level of anger and a sense of disrespect,” Lozada said. “I think we’ll see people who were undecided until this week turn to Harris. We will see Puerto Ricans come out in record numbers to demand to be respected. And they will demand it with their vote.

Strategists from both major parties are still reeling from a critical moment of Trump’s xenophobic rally on October 27, which Democrats hope might provide a marginal benefit in the last days. While delivering a comical setting filled with racist jokesHinchcliffe, a comedian based in Austin, Texas, described Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean.”

In a gathering filled with nativist and racist remarks, Hinchcliffe’s comments nevertheless stood out for the politically significant audience they offended. Republican elected officials in Florida and other states and districts with a large Puerto Rican component were quick to condemn these comments. Puerto Rican pop stars Bad Bunny, Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin replied that evening by sharing a video call from Harris to Puerto Rican voters.

The Trump campaign took the rare step of distancing him from the insult comedy, saying “the joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”

But Trump’s Puerto Rican critics criticized him for failing to apologize or condemn Hinchcliffe’s remarks as soon as he took the podium.

“I specifically asked the audience, ‘OK, what if Trump suddenly decided to apologize today… Would that be OK?’ Would you take this into consideration?’ » Victor Martinez, host of a Spanish-language morning radio show popular throughout Pennsylvania, said on CNN Tuesday. “The vast majority of everyone was like, ‘No, it’s too late.’ »

Seeking to capitalize on the blowback suffered by Trump, the Harris campaign on Thursday sent the vice president’s sister, Maya Harris, and Puerto Rican musical theater artist Lin-Manuel Miranda to rally Puerto Rican voters at the Puerto Rican Beneficial Society in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. . Harris is scheduled to hold a rally in nearby Allentown Monday afternoon.

HuffPost spoke with several Puerto Rican voters outside a CTown supermarket south of Bethlehem, across the street from the Puerto Rican Beneficial Society.

Nilsa Vega and Neidel Pacheco of Hellertown, a neighborhood south of Bethlehem, both said they had never voted before, but Hinchcliffe’s remarks were why they planned to vote for Harris on Tuesday.

“It hit right there,” Vega said. “They keep saying, ‘Oh, he’s just a comedian.’ It still hurts.

Pacheco viewed Trump’s decision to pose in a garbage truck during a campaign stop in Wisconsin the next day as further insult. “If he had nothing to do with this, what is he doing in the garbage truck?” » asked Pacheco.

Sergio Martinez, a Bethlehem warehouse worker, said he had never voted before and was wondering if he should vote now. He thinks Trump “kept the country strong – economically speaking – and kept the borders a little tighter.”

But Martinez has reservations about Trump because he has “ways of saying things about immigrants and just people other than white people.” So it’s a little iffy on that.

Martinez was less fazed by Hinchcliffe’s remarks. However, her mother, who never votes, considers voting for Harris because of the joke.

“It definitely had an impact,” Martinez said. “Everyone tells everyone, ‘Don’t vote for him.'”