In majority Latino Allentown, second gentleman Doug Emhoff courts voters for Harris-Walz ticket
Second gentleman Doug Emhoff (left) speaks at a rally with U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) (right) at Dieruff High School in Allentown on Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024. (Capital-Star photo by Peter Hall)
In Pennsylvania’s largest city with a majority Latino population, second gentleman Doug Emhoff told voters and volunteers that Vice President Kamala Harris would ensure continued opportunity and prosperity for families hoping to start businesses and build generational wealth if she is elected president.
“This is all about creating an opportunity economy where all of us, every one of us, can succeed,” Emhoff said Saturday in Allentown, where he visited a Harris-Walz campaign field office to kick off a neighborhood door-knocking effort and a city high school to speak at a rally.
With the potential for Pennsylvania’s 579,000 eligible Latino voters to sway the outcome in a battleground state where the last two presidential elections were determined by narrow margins, the Harris-Walz campaign and former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, have worked to reach them.
Latinos, who make up more than half the population of Allentown, Pennsylvania’s third-largest city, remain behind several other demographic groups in significant economic measures, according to a voter profile released this week by the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute.
A survey released this week by UnidosUS, the largest Hispanic civil rights and advocacy center in the nation, shows Latino voters are concerned with the high cost of living, the minimum wage and rising housing costs heading into the November elections.
Emhoff told voters in Allentown that Harris will lower costs and grow the middle class through education and support for families and small businesses.
“That’s the basis of any great economy. She is a capitalist. She is pro-growth. She’s pro-business, but she’s also pro-labor and pro-market. All those things can exist at the same time,” Emhoff told a crowd that the campaign estimated at more than 400 in the gymnasium at Dieruff High School on Allentown’s east side.
Allentown School Board President Andrene Brown-Nowell told the Capital-Star before the rally that the Latino community is looking to see how the presidential candidates are going to support their children through education.
“How are we making sure that they have all the resources that they need … to fill the workforce and be prepared for the workforce,” Brown-Nowell said. “It is so important that our Latino community is supported, because they are the minority right now, but they are getting ready to be the majority.”
U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona told the rally crowd he was the proud grandson of Puerto Rican farmers who told him: “Para tener buena cosecha, hay que saben siembra. In order to have a good harvest, you must know how to plant seeds, right?“
“Planting seeds for the future generation is what the Harris-Walz ticket is all about. Planting seeds for a brighter future for our children with access to education, healthcare and accessible housing,” Cardona said.
Some who listened to Emhoff told the Capital-Star they’re supporting Harris because they believe she and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, will protect the interests of the working class, minorities and immigrants.
“The most important thing is for us also to have the opportunity to build generational wealth,” said Jose Merced of Bethlehem. “Other folks had that opportunity, and we would like that opportunity also for our kids, you know, and so we can move forward and grow and have a better life.”
Merced said help for families such as Harris’ proposals to restore a pandemic era child tax credit and help first-time homebuyers resonated most strongly for him.
“Once they invest in a property, in a home, it could be theirs and for their children in the future, and you build generational wealth that way, because that’s how America was built,” Merced said.
Maria Cruz of Northampton said she came to the rally to hear the speakers reaffirming the Harris-Walz campaign’s promise of “a new way forward.” Cruz, who immigrated to the United States from Mexico with her mother as an 8-year-old, said she believes everything she worked for by becoming a citizen is at stake in this year’s election.
“The first thing I did when I became a citizen was register to vote, because sometimes people do not understand what it takes to be a citizen, and I think Trump doesn’t understand that,” Cruz said. “So we are fighting, and we want to not have that back in the White House.”
Before the rally, Emhoff visited a Harris-Walz campaign office in downtown Allentown where he and U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) delivered snacks to volunteers from Mary Ann Donut Kitchen, a 65-year-old Allentown institution.
Espaillat, the first Dominican American and first formerly undocumented immigrant to serve in Congress, spoke about the threat that a second Trump presidency poses not only to the United States, but to its position in the world.
Although Trump has tried to distance himself, Democrats and civil rights advocates have issued dire warnings about a conservative presidential transition plan titled “Project 2025.” Among its plans to dismantle pillars of American society, it discusses closing the U.S. Department of Education.
“People from all over the world understand and know that the great equalizer in the United States is its public education system,” Espallit said. “It doesn’t matter where you come from, what language you speak, who you pray to, whether you’re middle class or you’re working class.”
Espallit told the volunteers not to discount as rhetoric the idea that this year’s presidential election is the most important in decades.
“No, this one truly is not just for our country, but for the world,” he said. “The whole world is watching what happens in this election.”
