Celebrity endorsements in an election year hardly a new phenomenon. But former President Donald Trump’s appearance alongside Puerto Rican reggaeton star Anuel AA is part of a larger pattern in his campaign’s outreach to voters of color and suggests the campaign may see an opportunity in the Pennsylvania battleground.
After greeting the former president on the tarmac, Anuel AA, born Emmanuel Gazmey Santiago, endorsed Trump at a rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania on Friday, telling Puerto Ricans to “stick together” and “vote for Trump.”
“I don’t know if these people know who you are, but it’s good for voting in Puerto Rico. Every Puerto Rican will vote for Trump right now. We will accept it,” Trump told several thousand participants at the campaign rally while introducing the rapper.
While the immediate crowd may not be familiar with the star, his stature as a reggaeton and rap artist will not be lost on his likely target audience: young Puerto Rican voters and battleground state Latino voters as a whole. The 31-year-old rapper is often seen on hits by artists such as Bad Bunny – and is a huge social media artist with a following of millions.
But the rapper’s appearance and brief statements may also be part of Trump’s broader campaign effort to sue artists of color engaging voters in a new way. Trump has garnered the support of several prominent black artists, including rappers Lil Wayne and Kodak Black, and others like Sexxy Red have expressed their support for the former president in interviews. Horse Rally in the Bronx Earlier this year, Trump brought up two local fixtures of the growing drill music scene: Sheff G and Sleepy Hallow.
Although Puerto Ricans living on the island — despite being US citizens — can only vote in presidential primaries, not general elections, they can still influence their relatives on the mainland. A state that doesn’t often come to mind like Pennsylvania battlefield with a big Latin soundis his house the third largest The Puerto Rican diaspora community in the country (about 500,000 Puerto Ricans) then After Hurricane Maria in 2017, thousands of people fled the island.
Puerto Rico and Latin America have shown their support for President Joe Biden critical to solidifying his successful 2020 campaign In the Keystone State, exit polls at the time showed that more than 60% of Latino voters nationwide favored Biden over Trump.
Both sides of the ticket can now see a path to victory in strengthening their margins in these growing diaspora communities.
Trump campaign earlier this summer “Latin Americans for Trump” office opened In Reading, Pennsylvania, he invited former Puerto Rico governor Luis Fortuño to deliver commencement speeches in both English and Spanish.
Even before Vice President Kamala Harris launched her own presidential bid following Biden’s decision not to seek re-election, made his first official visit to the island and toured the housing developments made possible by $140 billion in infrastructure funding from the Biden-Harris administration.
While it’s hard to measure the impact of any celebrity endorsement, Anuel AA’s campaigning on Trump’s behalf is significant — even as a pop culture moment.