After Taylor Swift endorsed Kamala Harris for president in early September 2024, she posted a message to her 284 million fans on Instagram Democratic strategists suggested that an endorsement by Puerto Rican recording artist Bad Bunny could do more to sway the election – particularly in the important thing swing state of Pennsylvania, home to about 300,000 Puerto Rican voters.

But when many Americans consider the de-industrialized eastern counties of Pennsylvania – including Presidential leaders like for instance Northampton – they could think more of Billy Joel's “Allentown“as Bad Bunnies”A candle“, a song concerning the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.

As Professor of History and director of Latina/o Studies at Penn State, I feel each entertainers – the legendary singer-songwriter and the Grammy-winning reggaeton and trap titan – can assist explain the political terrain within the Keystone State, which is widely considered that Battleground that may determine the following president.

“Close all factories”

When Billy Joel recorded his somber song in 1982 about staff being left behind because “they're closing all the factories,” he was mostly describing the situation Bethlehem, Pennsylvania6 miles from Allentown.

From the tip of the Seventies there have been massive Bethlehem Steel Corp. began to dismiss Tens of 1000’s of staff. But Joel didn't think that particularly rhymed with “Bethlehem,” so used the neighboring town as an alternative.

By the Seventies, smaller Pennsylvania industrial towns corresponding to Bethlehem, Hazleton, York, Reading, and Lancaster were losing population and vitality, and in lots of cases the decline had been occurring for a long time.

And for a lot of Americans, especially outside Pennsylvania, the image of those cities hasn't modified since then. They still take into consideration shrinking cities populated by white factory staff.

Growing Latino presence

But Allentown, Bethlehem and other older industrial towns in Pennsylvania have experienced a remarkable revival, thanks partially to the arrival of recent residents – most of them Latinos from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. Since the Nineties, these newcomers have helped restore population growth, stabilize housing markets, and supply labor to recent industries corresponding to warehousing and transportation.

Allentown is now 54% Latinos – a better proportion of Latinos than Los Angeles.

Lancaster And Yorkthat are 40% and 38% Latino, respectively, have significantly larger proportions of Latinos than Chicago And recent York. And reading, too 69% Latinosis sort of as Latin American as Miami, at 70%. Of course, the entire variety of Latino voters in these major cities is way larger.

Three aspects are driving Latinos to settle in these cities. They are likely to have loads of it Warehousing and logistics jobs, affordable housing and a small sense of community – especially in comparison with New York City, where Many of those recent residents got here from and in a roundabout way from Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic.

Industrial towns like Allentown, Bethlehem and Reading had Democratic strongholds for a very long time Because of the labor movement. And they still are – although that is now resulting from each the influence of unions and the political leanings of Hispanic voters.

According to a 2022 Pew Research Center survey, 60% of Latino adults In the US, Democrats say the Democratic Party represents the interests of “people like them,” in comparison with 34% who say the identical of the Republican Party.

The 2020 US Census found this to be the case for the primary time greater than 1 million Latinos in Pennsylvania – a number that has since risen to greater than 1.1 million. This includes around 580,000 eligible votersalthough Latinos are likely to do each register and to vote at much lower rates as non-Latino white and black voters.

It is actually an oversimplification to attribute a state or national advantage to only one population group – be it Soccer mothers within the Nineties, Fathers within the office park And values ​​voters within the 2000s or Latinos in 2024.

But in a single A really close election like thissmall shifts within the margins of key groups, corresponding to Latino voters in Pennsylvania, can determine who becomes president.

Puerto Ricans lean Democratic

The Latino vote includes different nationalities and identities and The partisans' preferences differ significantly underneath.

Mexicans and Puerto Ricans, for instance, have shown this utmost loyalty to the Democratic Partywhile Cubans are known to be the most strongly republican, followed by Venezuelans.

Additionally, Pennsylvania's Hispanic population has a really different distribution than the national population. In the USA, for instance, there are people of Mexican descent 60% of all LatinosPuerto Ricans make up 9.5% and Cubans, Dominicans and Salvadorans each make up about 4%.

But in Pennsylvania, 53% of Latinos are Puerto Rican and 13% discover as Mexican. Meanwhile, 11% say they’re Dominican and only 3% say they’re Cuban.

And that brings us back to Bad Bunny, who was born and raised in Vega Baja, a small town on the north coast of Puerto Rico. People born in Puerto Rico are U.S. residents but can only vote in U.S. elections in the event that they continue to exist the mainland. And those that live in Pennsylvania could prove crucial in November.

90,000 undecided votes?

Overall, Latinos were a part of the coalition that helped in 2020 Joe Biden wins the state of his birth and go to the White House.

Biden roughly won 75% of the Latino vote in Pennsylvania to 25% for Trump. Given that Biden won Pennsylvania by just 80,000 votes How the state's 580,000 Latino voters in 2020 divide their votes in 2024 could determine the following president.

This is borne out by the recent survey of Latinos in key Northampton County. This was present in the September 2024 survey of Latinos within the county Harris led Trump 60% to 25%.

This was actually a powerful lead from Harris, but the importance was peripheral.

The poll found that Harris had didn’t match Biden's Latino vote share nationally in 2020, and Trump also fell in need of his own 2020 Latino totals. According to the numbers, about 90,000 Latino voters should still be undecided — and subsequently could play a vital role in deciding who to support and by what margin.

This is why there was a lot speak about whether Bad Bunny will likely be within the running. Both campaigns clearly assume that support from high-profile Latinas and Latinos could help win over community members.

In addition to national support from stars like America Ferrera And Rosario Dawsonthe Harris campaign recently held one Rally in Allentown with Emmy-winning actress Liza Colón-Zayas of “The Bear” and “Hamilton” fame and “In the Heights” star Anthony Ramos – each of Puerto Rican descent.

The Trump campaign, meanwhile, produced Puerto Rican rappers Anuel AA and Justin Quiles on stage to support the previous president at his Johnstown rally in late August.

Latinos are like all other voters in that they make decisions based on a mixture of economic interests, cultural values ​​and community feelings. No one knows if celebrity endorsement will make a difference — but campaigns will try every little thing they will to get undecided voters to commit to their candidate.

The Democratic National Committee announced Sept. 29 that it will spend extra money in the ultimate weeks before Election Day Engaging Puerto Rican and other Latino voters in Pennsylvania.

So while there’s the biggest concentration of Hispanic voters within the US still within the southwestessentially the most crucial group of Latina and Latino voters could also be those that live removed from the border in eastern Pennsylvania.

Postal voting in Pennsylvania doesn’t begin on September 16, 2024, how was previously plannedDue to ongoing legal proceedings, there may be a possibility that the past will repeat itself within the upcoming presidential election on this Commonwealth.

Legal disputes over Pennsylvania’s electoral system attracted nationwide attention in 2020 Former President Donald Trump and his allies within the state exploited the peculiarities of the system to sow doubts concerning the election results.

Trump is setting the stage to do the identical thing in 2024. On September 8, 2024, he posted on Truth Social that an interview with Tucker Carlson revealed that “20% of Pennsylvania's mail-in ballots are fraudulent.” He called on the U.S. Attorney General, the FBI, and Pennsylvania Republicans to do something about it.

Because of the decentralized nature of election administration within the United States, each state—and even each county—has its own rules for counting votes and casting votes.

As Associate Professor of Public Policy I follow Pennsylvania politics very closely and have watched the mail-in voting situation for the past 4 years, so I expect the identical issues to crop up again in November.

Act 77

For much of its history, Pennsylvania has allowed mail-in voting only to a really specific group of voters, comparable to those traveling to a different state on Election Day.

In 2019, Democratic Governor Tom Wolf and the Republican-controlled General Assembly passed Law 77which undertook comprehensive reforms of the state's electoral system.

Every party got something big.

Democrats receive mail-in ballots without excusewhich implies that anyone can apply for a postal vote. Postal voting was way more from Democrats than Republican voters in Pennsylvania, although this will be due partially to misinformation concerning the security of mail-in voting.

The Republicans, then again, has abolished the straight-ticket election that had hurt them in lower-ballot elections. Straight-ticket voting allows voters to pick a complete slate of Democrats or Republicans with only one selection, reasonably than having to vote in each individual race.

COVID and the 2020 election

In Pennsylvania, the power to vote by mail without excuse was put to the test within the midst of a worldwide pandemic.

During the Pennsylvania primary in June 2020, there have been significant delays in processing a flood of mail-in ballots. By comparison, within the 2016 presidential election in Pennsylvania – before Act 77 – only 4% of votes were forged by mail. This share rose to 39% within the 2020 election.

Of course, the rise was not only as a result of Act 77, but in addition as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Mail-in voting was popular since it allowed people to vote from home without exposing themselves to possible exposure to the virus. The alarm bells rang among the many district officialsalthough, as some counties of Pennsylvania lasted greater than every week to finish their counts and ensure the outcomes of the primaries.

In the summer of 2020, experts began to speak about a “Red Fata Morgana” or “Blue Shift” in states like Pennsylvania. The terms describe the phenomenon that on Election Day, in-person votes favor Republicans, but in the times afterward, Democrats take the lead when mail-in votes, which are likely to favor Democrats, are counted.

Trump claimed that such a phenomenon was Evidence of a “stolen election.”

PA bans pre-processing of ballot papers

One reason it is really easy to challenge election ends in Pennsylvania is that the state is considered one of the only a few – others are Alabama, Mississippi and North Dakota – which don’t allow Preprocessing of postal votes.

Preprocessing refers to removing postal ballots from their envelopes, checking their validity, smoothing the ballots and setting them aside for counting on election day.

The process sounds easy, nevertheless it is time-consuming when county election officials should repeat it tens of 1000’s of times.

Some states, like Oregonallow poll staff to start out this process immediately as soon because the ballots arrive. Others, comparable to Arkansasallow pre-processing to start only five to seven days before Election Day. Some states also allow voters to “cure”, or correct minor errors on their ballots – comparable to a missing signature or a unique field – if election officials notice an error.

PennsylvaniaHowever, it doesn’t allow ballot counting to start at 7 a.m. on Election Day when polls open. This is a serious reason for the numerous delays in vote counting within the state.

And it’s a peculiarity that Trump and his allies exploited in 2020 to sow doubts concerning the results.

Problem not resolved

Warnings of delays within the 2020 primary and increasing rhetoric from Trump a couple of stolen election all but pushed the Pennsylvania General Assembly to repair the issue. in September 2020However, an agreement failed as a result of other proposed changes, comparable to the ban on postal ballot boxes.

Democrats within the House of Representatives have attempted to pass a separate preprocessing bill. including one earlier this yrIt would allow counties to start processing ballots seven days before Election Day – but not counting them.

But the implications of the 2020 elections appear to have poisoned the compromise within the electoral law, even with regards to pre-processing, which broad support from election experts and doesn’t give any party a selected advantage. In addition, not all districts need to perform pre-processing. For example, less populated districts don’t want to make use of the extra human and financial resourcessince it doesn't save them much time.

What to expect

While September 16 is the primary date on which counties in Pennsylvania must begin processing absentee ballot applications, several court cases Information on voting within the Commonwealth and when and the way votes shall be counted are still pending.

This implies that while Pennsylvania residents' applications shall be processed in September, they will not be expected to receive a mail-in ballot until October.

Meanwhile, the General Assembly unlikely that the principles against preprocessing will change before the 2024 election.

Postal voting has not disappeared with the pandemic. In the 2022 midterm elections 1.4 million residents of Pennsylvania asked to vote by mail. Since voter turnout is way higher in presidential election years, Pennsylvania can expect that number to extend in 2024.

Pennsylvania has redesigned its mail-in ballot, leading to fewer rejected ballots. Nevertheless, the Trump campaign is already Exploiting formalities to reject postal votes within the decisive swing state.

Ongoing legal proceedings In addition to the delays within the vote count, the certification of the Commonwealth ends in November may very well be delayed. Given its emerging status because the must-win state within the 2024 electionsPennsylvania will once more draw the nation’s attention to its electoral system.