In Swing-State Pennsylvania, a Latino-Majority City Looks Back at the 2024 Election

Ahead of Election Day 2024, the Fulcrum launched We the People, a series elevating the voices and visibility of the persons most affected by the decisions of elected officials.

Now, we continue with the series The 50, a four-year multimedia project that visits the public where they live across all 50 states to learn what motivated them to vote in the 2024 presidential election and see how the Donald Trump administration is meeting those concerns and hopes.

Pennsylvania, with the largest electoral prize of all major swing states, was a coveted prize for Vice President Kamala Harris and then former-president Donald Trump in the 2024 race to the White House. It was predicted that the winner of the Keystone State was highly likely to win the entire election.

It was fitting for us to begin The 50 project by visiting Reading, PA. The majority Latino city inched a win for Harris, but ultimately Trump easily won Berks County, home to Reading, by 12 points and the state by more than 50% of the vote.

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Many of the residents we spoke with pointed to the economy—the high cost of living—as the incentive to vote, but that wasn’t the only reason. "I know the economy was very difficult under Joe Biden," said Ramon Martinez, co-owner of Mofongo Restaurant. "I wanted to vote against Donald Trump because of his rhetoric against Latinos."

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Fellow small business owner Johanny Cepeda-Freyitz agreed with Martinez. She, like Martinez, has seen a decrease in customers at her restaurant, Mi Casa, Su Casa, because of the fear created by Trump's mass deportation agenda. Cepeda-Freyitz, who is also a democratic state representative, questioned the wisdom of having Elon Musk lead what she calls reckless and irresponsible behavior: "You bring someone into the administration that has no prior experience in how government works. And you're dismantling, and you're laying off, and you're firing all these people. So, how are you really helping families?"

We also spoke with republican Michael Rivera, Berks County Commissioner, about the aggressive moves coming from Washington, DC, and its impact on people, in particular, Reading's immigrant community. Rivera explained that many of his constituents aren't opposed to immigrants who come to the country legally and reacted favorably at the polls to Trump's closing-the-border campaign.

Rivera agrees the broken immigration system must be fixed to make it easier for people to come to the U.S., as the economy depends on it. "There are more job openings than there are people that are able to fill those jobs," he said. "We're not going to birth our way out of that. The way we're going to do that is through people coming in through legal immigration. So, the laws here in the United States do need to be improved."

The Pew Research Center estimates roughly more than 8 million undocumented immigrants are working in the U.S., representing about 5% of all workers.

Centro Hispano supports social services for newcomers and lifelong residents in Reading. "We can connect them to programs and services to help improve their quality of life," said Michael Toledo, President & CEO of Centro Hispano. "Whether it's in healthcare, whether it's in housing, whether it's food insecurity, workforce development, anything that we can do to help lift up our constituents."

Among the initiatives Centro Hispano collaborates with are voter registration drives.

Born and raised in Reading, Toledo said that many members of his community are concerned with what the Trump administration's priorities mean to them and their families. However, he also mentioned others say it's early in the administration and are taking a wait-and-see approach.

While Harris did win Reading handily, Trump’s success in moving the electorate relative to 2020 helped him win the crucial Rust Belt swing state—a sign of things to come in Election 2024.

Hugo Balta is the executive editor of the Fulcrum and a board member of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund, the parent organization of The Fulcrum. He is the publisher of the Latino News Network and a trainer with the Solutions Journalism Network.