Puerto Rican voters could deliver Donald Trump an unwelcome ‘October surprise’

YDRCCJ. by Todd Landman, University of Nottingham As it moves into the final week, the US election campaign remains so tight that most commentators are calling it a toss-up. But Donald Trump’s campaign may have just dealt itself its own “October surprise” – something no candidate for the US president wants as it stands for a last-minute disaster. At his much anticipated “closing argument” rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City on October 27, various warm-up speakers engaged in strong, dark rhetoric about the state of the nation that laid the ground for Trump to take the stage and assert his position as the “protector”, “fixer”, and “liberator” of what he and his support base like to think of as an “occupied” country. But the tone and content of the event was problematic from the start. Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made opening remarks in which he described Puerto Rico as an “island of garbage”. Deep offense at these remarks rippled across America’s Puerto Rican community and beyond. His slur on Puerto Rico drew condemnation across the political spectrum and mobilized a rash of new endorsements for the Harris-Walz campaign. The incident has raised the prospect of a Puerto Rican...