Former President Donald Trump’s campaign team opened its first field office in Reading, Pennsylvania, focused on winning over Latino voters.
On Wednesday, Trump’s team held an event celebrating the opening of the new office. In attendance were around 50 people, Republican U.S. Senate candidate David McCormick, and former governor of Puerto Rico Luis Fortuno.
Reading is located 60 miles northwest of Philadelphia and is home to 95,000 people. According to the U.S. Census, 67% of the population is Latino — making it the city with the highest Latino population in the state.
Only two other cities in Pennsylvania have a Latino population above 50%, and they are within a two-hour drive of Reading.
Pennsylvania is a key swing state that both President Joe Biden and Trump are fighting for. In 2020, Trump lost to Biden by just over 1% of the vote, but in Berks County, where the newly created Republican National Committee field office is, Trump beat Biden by almost 17,000 votes.
Polling shows that Latino support for Biden had dropped. In a head-to-head matchup, Biden leads Trump among swing-state Latinos by 59% to 39%, according to polling conducted through April and May. According to a 2020 exit poll in Pennsylvania, 69% of Hispanic/Latino voters supported Biden while 27% supported Trump.
“Republican values are very much aligned with many in the Latino community,” McCormick told reporters. “It’s essentially the idea of creating an economy and creating an environment that allows people to pursue the American dream. Industrious and hard-working, they want the best thing for their children and an economy where small businesses can prosper and create jobs and where they can raise their kids in communities that are safe. I think that lines up very well with the principles of the Republican Party.”
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The Reading field office opened up a week after the first GOP office opened in northeast Philadelphia. The opening event was focused on black voters and included Republican Texas Rep. Wesley Hunt and other black Republicans.
The Biden campaign has already opened 24 field offices across the state.