A ‘man’s man’ vs. ‘the future’ | Morning Newsletter
And Latino leaders speak out.
The Morning Newsletter
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Hi, Philly. You know the region just set one weather record by way of this ongoing dry spell. We’ll come close to another this week: warmest Halloween.
One week from Election Day, the political gender divide remains sharp, with women overwhelmingly supporting Vice President Kamala Harris and men overwhelmingly supporting former President Donald Trump. Our lead story examines how the campaigns are minding the gap.
And Trump’s campaign is zeroing in on Lehigh County, including Allentown, home to 34,000 Puerto Ricans. His visit there today comes shortly after racist remarks about Latinos made at a Sunday rally drew outrage in the Philadelphia region and far beyond.
Here’s what to know today.
— Julie Zeglen (morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)
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In purple Pennsylvania, polls show Democratic presidential candidate Harris has a 16-point edge among women. Republican presidential candidate Trump has a 15-point edge among men. Their campaigns are approaching this gender divide very differently.
Harris, who would become the nation’s first woman elected president if she wins in November, has opted to downplay the gap, though campaign surrogates seek to appeal to women by highlighting her stance on issues such as abortion rights. Meanwhile, Trump has cultivated a macho persona complete with genitalia jokes and outreach during football tailgates.
Accordingly, their supporters describe them in opposing terms: “Women, they see her as the future,” a 55-year-old Philadelphia woman said of Harris, while a 34-year-old man from Butler County called Trump a “man’s man.”
Reporters Alfred Lubrano, Julia Terruso, and William Bender have the story.
Trump will be rallying this evening in Lehigh County’s Allentown, a majority-Latino Pennsylvania city that President Joe Biden won handily four years ago. Yet it’s also a place where Republicans see opportunity, as the party gained more votes from 2016 to 2020 than Democrats did.
The Tuesday visit comes two days after his rally at Madison Square Garden featured a speaker who referred to American territory Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”
Reporter Anna Orso has the story on the significance of the Allentown stop.
The blowback: Latino celebrities and politicians responded swiftly to the comments made at Sunday’s rally, with the likes of Bad Bunny and Jennifer Lopez voicing their support for Harris.
Local response: In Philadelphia, which after New York City has the country’s highest Puerto Rican population, Latino community leaders gathered in Fairhill Monday to condemn the racist remarks. “Our frustration and our anger should be turning into voting,” Reading Mayor Eddie Morán said. The Berks County city he represents, like Allentown, is majority-Latino and blue but shifting red.
Further reading: Former City Councilmember María Quiñones Sánchez wrote an op-ed on the Philly Boricua response to comments at the Trump rally, and Bad Bunny’s endorsement.
What you should know today
Three people have been charged with murder in the home-invasion killing of a Cumberland County detective.
A childhood friend of Philadelphia City Council President Kenyatta Johnson was sentenced to a year in federal prison Monday for using those ties to profit from sales of city-owned land.
Philly DA Larry Krasner on Monday sued to halt Elon Musk’s $1 million daily giveaway to voters in battleground states.
The city’s police department was within its rights to fire or discipline 20 officers who made racist or offensive posts on Facebook in 2019, a federal judge ruled Monday.
Thousands of Pennsylvanians received text messages that falsely claimed they had already voted in the upcoming election. Ignore them, officials say.
Republicans are frustrated over long lines and early cut-offs for in-person mail voting in Bucks County. A weekend incident underscores limits of state law.
U.S. Rep Brian Fitzpatrick’s race against Ashley Ehasz should be competitive in purple Bucks County. He’s acting like it’s a sure bet by avoiding his challenger, and questions about Trump.
The candidates for Pennsylvania attorney general disagree on whether abortion is a constitutional right in the state. Here’s where they stand.
The wealthy Montgomery County SPCA is the subject of a state audit amid a leadership shake-up and ongoing reforms.
🧠 Trivia time
Which baseball team might use the Phillies’ spring training park as their regular-season home next season after their own was damaged?
A) Tampa Bay Rays
B) Toronto Blue Jays
C) Miami Marlins
D) Texas Rangers
Think you know? Check your answer.
What we’re...
❌ Planning for: A possible SEPTA strike next month.
🚑 Discovering: Local hospitals’ readmission rates via this interactive tool.
🚢 Learning: How tariffs might affect Pennsylvania prices.
🧩 Unscramble the anagram
The second-year head coach of a Philadelphia sports team
KEN INCURS
Email us if you know the answer. We’ll select a reader at random to shout out here. Cheers to Ronald Workman, who solved Monday’s anagram: West Chester. At the Chester County borough’s eponymous university, a professor and her class polled students statewide about the election. Here’s what they found.
Photo of the day
🎨 One last artistic thing: George Anthony Morton, the artist featured in the HBO film Master of Light, is the artist for a mural of Henry Ossawa Tanner’s “The Thankful Poor in Philadelphia.” The nearly 70-by-39-foot mural is going on a wall of the Gethsemane F.B.H. Church in North Philly.
See you back here tomorrow. ‘Til then, have a good one.
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