Efraín Lugo is sitting at the bar, looking at six screens showing the same image. In one shot, Donald Trump, with his typical frown and downturned lips. In another, Kamala Harris, wide-eyed with a slight smile, her trademark look of sarcastic surprise.

It’s the night of Tuesday, September 10. The presidential debate is being broadcast live, just steps from where the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were signed and three train stops from this bar in Kensington, Philadelphia.

Lugo has lived in this city, the largest in Pennsylvania — one of the states expected to be decisive in the upcoming U.S. elections — since he was 15. He specifically resides in this northern part of the city where over half the population is Latino, primarily Puerto Rican and Dominican.

The bar is packed, and Lugo makes room for me to sit beside him. He started speaking English and told me he was from San Juan, Puerto Rico. Then, he specifies: “From Santurce.” Finally, he switches to Spanish: “I’m from El Fanguito,” referring to the slum built on mud between the mangroves of the Caño Martín Peña in the first half of the 20th century.

He arrived in Brooklyn, New York, in 1968 when he was eight, “because my parents brought me here for a better life; they were from the sugarcane fields, from the mountains,” he says, speaking almost directly into my ear, as the sound of the debate commentary is blaring on the TVs. However, no one seems to be paying attention.

“When I came to New York, I came to the lion’s den. Gang fights, culture shock. By 14, I was on the streets and became a gangster in Brooklyn, living alone. I survived a murder; I survived a lot of shit. By the time I was 15, I had done so much crap that New York basically kicked me out. And that’s how I ended up in Philly, on a $12 Peter Pan bus. I came here to better my life. My aunt helped me,” Lugo recounts.

He studied at Edison High School in North Philly. He took a mechanics course through the Job Corps program in Texas and later joined the U.S. Navy. He left Texas because jobs there weren’t unionized and paid little. He returned to Philadelphia, where his first union job was building Interstate 95. Two weeks ago, he retired from a job at Drexel University in the same city. His first retirement check will arrive soon. He’s 63 years old.

“I raised four women,” he says proudly of his now-grown daughters.

What did you think of the debate? I ask.

“It was good, it was strong, but it was too much of ‘you, you, you,’ and that’s not what we want to hear,” he says.

“I’m a Democrat,” he confesses without prompting, then adds, “but I support Trump.”

A Party for Kamala

At the back of the bar, windows are covered with Democratic Party posters. Behind them is a patio with tables and strings of lights hanging overhead. Mounted high on a black wall are two screens showing the debate. On one table, there’s a blue sign reading “Pennsylvania for Harris” next to a can of Medalla, the Puerto Rican beer you can only find in bars in this part of North Philly.

Two blocks from this bar, on the same street, is the Puerto Rican restaurant El Sabor. Five minutes away by car is Fairhill, a dense cluster of rowhouses where the largest concentration of Boricuas has lived since the 1980s. According to the Census, the neighborhood has around 4,456 residents, and on some blocks, 85% to 90% of residents are Latino, mostly Puerto Rican.

When comparing the results of the last two presidential elections in the electoral division that includes this area, you can see that between 2016 and 2020, the Republican Party grew its electorate. In 2016, Trump received 372 votes, while in 2020, he received 1,043. In contrast, Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate in 2016, received 7,352 votes, while Joe Biden, the 2020 Democratic candidate, got 5,483, as the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI) found using data from the Philadelphia City Commissioners. This bipartisan commission of three members (two Democrats and one Republican), elected by popular vote, oversees elections and voter registration.

The observed election results correspond to Ward 7, which includes Fairhill and parts of Kensington. The Philadelphia Inquirer, the state’s largest newspaper, found the same trend of increasing Republican votes and declining Democratic support in other wards of Pennsylvania cities with large Latino majorities, where Puerto Ricans are the largest group, such as Allentown, Reading, and Lancaster.

Although Republicans have gained support among Puerto Ricans and the broader Latino community in Pennsylvania and other states with large Puerto Rican populations like Florida, a BSP Research poll for UnidosUS conducted in August showed that 57% of Puerto Rican voters in the United States would vote for Harris, while 31% would vote for Trump. Among Latinos, 59% support Harris, the current United States Vice President. The same poll showed that Harris is leading among Latinos in Pennsylvania.

A small group of Harris supporters — about 20 people, almost all Puerto Rican — are gathered on the patio of the Philadelphia bar, Halftime Goodtimes. Everyone watches the two screens intently. This is supposed to be a watch party organized by the Latinos for the Harris-Walz electoral program. And while there is shouting in response to what the candidates say — either to celebrate or reject Trump’s remarks — and despite the laughter, beer, and snacks, the atmosphere feels more like a group gathered to watch the weather report just before a storm hits.

A middle-aged man watches the debate while standing, one hand crossed over his stomach and the other covering his mouth. During a commercial break, he lights a cigarette. I asked him what was worrying him so much. He told me he couldn’t talk to me because of his job. A woman at a nearby table said the same thing — that she had to “remain neutral” because of her work. The Latinos for Harris-Walz watch party began to take on the feel of a secret event. In fact, unlike other watch parties held around the city, this one wasn’t advertised anywhere. I found out about this event after several calls to representative offices at Philadelphia City Hall, when someone told me about this bar.

The event organizer, Danilo Burgos, is here, watching the debate and drinking a Medalla, Puerto Rico’s beer. Burgos, a Dominican and Democratic member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives for the district that includes parts of Fairhill and Kensington, says that abortion has been a fundamental issue for Republicans in winning support among the Latino community. The official Republican position is against a woman’s right to choose, and they have pushed laws to ban or restrict abortion. The issue will be decisive in Florida, where there will be a vote on it on the same day as the presidential election.

“These [Latino] communities have been moving to places with a lot of Republicans, so that helps increase Republican voter registration,” Burgos explains as another factor that has helped Republicans gain Latino support. He’s referring to people who have moved out of the city to places like Lebanon, York, or Milton in central Pennsylvania.

“In Milton, where they make Chef Boyardee cans, the Puerto Rican community has revived the town… The Puerto Rican community has integrated into communities that are or have historically been Republican,” Burgos says.

Puerto Ricans in the Electoral Battleground

Some of what the Democratic representative mentions aligns with what Nilda Ruiz told me on July 16. Since 2005, Ruiz has been the president of Asociación Puertorriqueños en Marcha (APM), a nonprofit organization operating since 1971 in North Philly, advocating for affordable housing, food security, and jobs for the Latino community. She also leads the National Puerto Rican Agenda (NPRA), a coalition of organizations in the United States working directly on public policy that affects Puerto Rico and the diaspora.

“We’re in very chaotic times,” Ruiz said in a Zoom interview.

Many Puerto Ricans are registered to vote in the U.S., partly thanks to efforts by organizations like APM and NPRA, Ruiz noted. However, she also pointed out that voter turnout remains low, partly because people don’t understand the process. “The red and blue here aren’t the same as the red and blue back there,” she explained, referring to how the main political parties are identified by color in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

Given the importance of the Puerto Rican vote in these elections, I asked if the parties had run campaigns explicitly targeting the Boricua community. She said they hadn’t.

“To them, everything is black and white. It’s either the whites or the Blacks. And a big part of this country is immigrants, and Puerto Ricans among them. I think they’re starting to wake up [to the importance of the Latino vote], now that they have a lot of influence in swing states like Pennsylvania, which can flip the election to red [Republican] or blue [Democrat],” Ruiz said.

The two presidential campaigns — Trump’s and Harris’s — are spending more money on political ads in Pennsylvania than in any other swing state, according to AdImpact, a political advertising analysis firm.

Pennsylvania is a swing state with a Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, who was considered a possible running mate for Harris as Vice President until Harris announced in Philadelphia that her running mate would be Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota. Pennsylvania was also the scene of the attempted assassination of Trump on July 13.

In the U.S., the president is not elected by the popular vote but by the vote of Electoral College delegates. The Electoral College comprises 538 delegates; a candidate needs at least 270 electoral votes to win the presidency. Each state’s number of electoral votes corresponds to its number of senators and representatives in Congress, plus one vote for each congressional district the state has.

“When you vote for the president, you’re not voting for the president. You’re telling your state which candidate you want it to vote for at the Electoral College meeting,” explains the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.

Among the seven swing states that could decide the election in November — Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Nevada, and Michigan — Pennsylvania has the most electoral votes: 19, corresponding to its 17 congressional districts and two members of Congress. In the 2020 presidential election, the crucial state was Florida, home to the most significant number of Boricuas in the U.S. Now it’s Pennsylvania. In 2016, Trump won here by a slim margin of 0.72%. In 2020, Democrat Joe Biden won with a margin of just 1.17%.

That’s why Pennsylvania is so decisive.

“Puerto Ricans are more politically mobilized and organized than other immigrants,” Ruiz said. She also highlighted the advantage that Puerto Ricans can vote once they move to the U.S. and establish residency because they are U.S. citizens.

Even so, “we’re still invisible. Sometimes two or three [candidates] come around and use us during the campaign, but after that, they forget we’re here,” Ruiz added.

Ruiz has also noticed that more Puerto Ricans have switched from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party.

“Maybe not in large numbers, but I know many Puerto Ricans feel the Democratic Party has abandoned them, has abandoned workers. This is interesting because Republicans are more capitalist and on employers’ side. But we also have a very conservative community,” she acknowledged.

One of the issues that concern this conservative community is gender perspective education, which some oppose, considering it “inappropriate” for minors, Ruiz explained. Gender perspective education promotes gender equality, mutual respect, and preventing discrimination. But Republican senators have opposed gender perspective education through legislation in places like Lancaster, a city in south-central Pennsylvania, where more than 35,000 Puerto Ricans live.

“What people need to ask about the candidates is what they’ve done for the Puerto Rican community, what’s important to Puerto Rico, and their positions on those issues, and then let the people decide. If they have that information, they’ll make more informed decisions and be more motivated to vote,” Ruiz said.

One of the most pressing issues affecting the Puerto Rican community in Philadelphia is access to housing, Ruiz added. “Housing prices are unaffordable for anyone now. To live comfortably in Philadelphia today, you must make at least $100,000. Rents are between $1,200 and $1,800 for one- or two-bedroom apartments. Our community’s average salary is between $24,000 and $30,000. Another issue is access to well-paying jobs and entry into industries. There are many well-paying jobs today, but Puerto Ricans aren’t educated on how to get into those jobs,” she said.

A World View

The atmosphere at the bar during the debate is different from the patio. People are watching the debate but not participating in the Harris watch party. Several men watch, somewhat attentively, while drinking. I then notice that above the screens, a scoreboard announces the results of several college football games, like Pittsburgh vs. Cincinnati and Georgia Tech vs. Syracuse. I wondered if people were more interested in those results or the debate.

The debate ends. Everyone stays on their high stools, and no one says anything.

Also sitting at the bar, Mario Figueroa was born in the U.S. to Puerto Rican parents and raised here in Kensington. He’s 59, has a 27-year-old daughter, and works as a physical therapist. When I asked him what he thought of the debate, he responded without much enthusiasm: “Normal, like all debates.”

He’s not enthusiastic about the electoral process and doesn’t favor any candidate. He has previously voted for the Democratic Party, but he’s not sure who to vote for right now. Did the debate sway him in any direction? “Not yet,” he responds.

The issues that concern him and could help him decide before November 5 are “lowering taxes, helping people who need it, and stopping the government from wasting money on people abusing the system, who don’t want to work,” he says, referring to government assistance programs like SNAP, which are a frequent target of attacks by conservatives and Republicans.

He agrees with Ruiz that voter turnout among the Puerto Rican diaspora is very low.

“I think the people who vote in our Latino culture and community are the young people who are studying, who are at least trying to do things right. The older people, who are already established, I don’t think they vote. I don’t think they care. And that’s the effect of the government not delivering what it promised them, just like in Puerto Rico, it’s happening here,” Figueroa says.

He also points out that the older people who don’t vote in the U.S. are more interested in Puerto Rican politics than the younger generation.

Sitting next to Figueroa is Efraín Lugo, from El Fanguito, who feels more convinced about his change.

“I’m a Democrat, but I switched. And the reason is that as a Marine, I traveled the seven seas. I’ve seen the world out there, and we’re in deep trouble right now, and we don’t even know it. This time I’m voting for Trump for several reasons.”

First, because of “the open border,” he says. This phrase has been used by Trump’s campaign to create a false perception that thousands of immigrants are entering the U.S. unchecked across the Mexican border.

“They let any son of a bitch come here. And then the welfare we pay for goes to people who’ve never even worked here. We have an immigration system, and people need to go through it, like a background check, so we know who’s coming here. You get me? Who’s coming to this country?”

Without waiting for a response, he continues: “It’s like that Guns N’ Roses song, Welcome to the Jungle, that’s what the U.S. is now.”

The six screens now show repeated images of Harris during the debate.

“That lady is cool, and Joe Biden… whatever, he did what he had to do, but prices have increased significantly. And why? Is it because we ran out of money or because we’re giving too much money to other countries, to terrorists, and all that shit? I gotta pay taxes on my Social Security. House taxes went up $25,000,” Lugo says.

We finished talking, and Lugo offered me a ride home to the other side of the city, a half-hour away by car. I tell him I’ll take the train. He insists: “Come on, I’ll take you.” The gesture touches me, reminding me of an uncle. I thanked him and told him I was heading to the station before the last train left. It’s almost midnight. After that, I thanked him for sharing his story, and he replied that he didn’t have one.

“I call it my vision; I don’t have a story. Stories can be changed. Some stories don’t have any foundation; some stories can be edited. What I’m telling you is my vision.”