ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Standing in front of 100 people in a gravel lot at Fountain Park earlier this week, Ana Navarro shared the story of how a doctor's mistake led to the tragic end of her pregnancy years ago.
As part of a Reproductive Freedom Bus Tour organized by Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential campaign, the co-host of "The View" and former political strategist said her doctor believed she had an ectopic pregnancy. The potentially life-threatening condition occurs when a fetus attaches outside the uterus, so her doctor gave her an injection to remove the fetus.
But a follow-up appointment revealed the doctor was wrong. The pregnancy would have been viable if not for the injection, she said. Due to the error, Navarro said, she had to have an abortion.
Today, she said, she's not sure how doctors would treat her in her home state of Florida. The state's six-week abortion ban includes exceptions to protect the life and health of a mother. But reports have surfaced across the country where women grew severely ill or died because doctors did not act due to confusion over state abortion bans.
The deaths and suffering these women are completely unnecessary and the fault of former President Donald Trump, according to Navarro. Trump has bragged about appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned 50 years of legal precedent. On the campaign trail, she said, he's ducked questions of whether he would sign a federal abortion ban.
Navarro delivered most of her 12-minute speech Tuesday in English, but when she grew more animated, the Nicaraguan immigrant would slip into Spanish.
"Quién es Donald Trump para pensar que él tiene derecho a decirle a cualquier mujer en los Estados Unidos lo que ella puede y no puede hacer con su cuerpo atrevido?" Navarro said. ("Who is Donald Trump to think he has the right tell any woman in the United States what she can and cannot do with her own precious body?")
Pulling out the stops
For years, Democrats across the country have leaned on messages about reproductive rights to rally their supporters ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
But the Democratic presidential ticket has increasingly pulled out all the stops to ensure that Latino VIPs are the messengers appearing in the Lehigh Valley.
U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra spoke with local Democrats over lunch in March about the importance organizing for ahead of the presidential election. U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., joined Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff earlier this month at an Allentown rally marketed toward Latino voters. And "In The Heights" star Anthony Ramos and Emmy-winner Liza Colón-Zayas will accompany Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz today in a visit to the Bethlehem area.
"The Lehigh Valley is one of our tier one priorities to meet Latinos where they are," said Maca Casado, the coalition media director for the Harris campaign.
Casado placed the Lehigh Valley as having equal importance to Phoenix and Las Vegas — two larger cities with significant Hispanic communities in battleground states.
A renewed focus
The Lehigh Valley has long drawn extra attention from national campaigns thanks to its status as a critical political battleground. The region has a near equal number of Democrats and Republicans, and carrying it could tip the scales for Pennsylvania's 19 votes in the Electoral College. Northampton County in particular has proven to be a bellwether; it's backed the winning candidate in all but three presidential races in the past 100 years.
In a bid to win the region, the Harris campaign has focused extra attention on connecting with the region's burgeoning Latino community, Casado said. The 2020 census found more than 1 in 5 people living in Lehigh and Northampton counties are Hispanic or Latino. Allentown is now a Latino-majority city, and the region is seeing an increase of Latinos elected to higher office. Mayor Matt Tuerk is the first Latino to hold the office, and this year Sheila Alvarado became the first Latina sworn in as a Lehigh County commissioner.
Historically, America's and the Lehigh Valley's Latino community has disproportionately favored Democrats, but Republicans have gained ground in recent years. While he still lost the city in 2020, Trump made inroads in Allentown compared to his 2016 campaign.
"We understand that the path to the White House passes through Pennsylvania, and the Latino vote plays a critical role."Maca Casado, coalition media director for the Kamala Harris campaign
Casado said that the Harris campaign is taking nothing for granted. While past campaigns may have assumed Hispanics will turn out to support Democrats, the Harris campaign is committed to building stronger connections with Latino voters in order to earn their support, she said.
"We understand that the path to the White House passes through Pennsylvania, and the Latino vote plays a critical role," Casado said.
Shared experience
To do that, the campaign is working to make sure that proxies for Harris on the campaign trail are people who share common experiences with Latino voters who can relate to their shared experiences, Casado said.
For example, U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, speaking in his personal capacity, was made available for an unsolicited interview with LehighValleyNews.com on Monday. Cardona said he was hitting the campaign trail on behalf of the Harris campaign because Trump has been a disaster for the Latino community.
Trump, he said, blocked $20 billion of congressionally approved aid to Puerto Rico in the aftermath of 2017's Hurricane Maria. The funding didn't arrive until 2021 under the Biden administration.
Trump has also consistently shown disrespect to the nation's immigrants, Cardona said. In December 2023, Trump told a New Hampshire crowd that illegal immigration was "poisoning the blood of our country." The comments drew condemnations from Biden and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican rival, who accused Trump of adopting Nazi rhetoric to demonize immigrants.
"Who do you want — someone who doesn't even respect you or respect your island?" said Cardona, a Connecticut native whose grandparents relocated from Puerto Rico.
The investment isn't without downside. Cardona acknowledged that Latino voters — here and nationally — historically have exhibited lower voter turnout than other ethnic groups. Many campaigns have tried to galvanize Latinos in the Lehigh Valley before only to come up short when turnout failed to meet raised expectations.
But, he said, the Latino community has been seeing greater representation in the halls of power under the Biden-Harris administration. Cardona is one of four Latino cabinet members serving under Biden; he doubted Hispanics would have the same level of influence in a second Trump term.
"I've been saying, 'Despierte, Latino — Wake up, Latino.' We have to be engaged here and get involved. We have a lot to lose," Cardona said.
"The ultimate message here — whether you're Hispanic, Black, white — is, 'Are you better off today than you were four years ago?'"Kush Desai, Pennsylvania communications director for the Donald Trump campaign
The proxies haven't been limited to national figures, either. Earlier this month, the campaign released a statewide ad featuring La Mega 101.7 FM owner and morning host Victor Martinez. Martinez, who lost in the Democratic primary for Lehigh County commissioner last year, interviewed Harris when she called into his show last year; he's since endorsed her for president.
The difference between the Democratic outreach this cycle compared to 2020 is night and day, he said. Back then, the Biden campaign waited until the final weeks of the race before reaching out to Lehigh Valley Latinos, he said.
But in a national race so close, with Republicans slowly making gains over time among the bloc, Democrats have been far more aggressive this cycle. He saw Democratic staffers preparing for the 2024 race in spring 2023, he said.
"If you look from Bush to McCain to Romney to Trump, they get a little bit better — 32%, 34%, 36%. That's why the Democrats and the Harris campaign can't take anything for granted," Martinez said.
Republican strategy
The Harris' campaign stands out when compared to the approach taken by the Trump campaign this election cycle. While the Trump campaign has set up a local headquarters in Bethlehem, the nearest Latinos for Trump office is located in Reading.
Kush Desai, Pennsylvania communications director for the Trump campaign, said the campaign has brought on bilingual volunteers and created Spanish-language literature to ensure their message is reaching Pennsylvania's Latino community.
But the campaign isn't interested in treating Hispanics as some "exotic other," Desai said.
Latinos are everyday Americans facing the same problems as the rest of the population — problems he pinned on the Biden-Harris administration such as high inflation, stiff gas prices and a porous southern border.
"The ultimate message here — whether you're Hispanic, Black, white — is, 'Are you better off today than you were four years ago?'" Desai said.
