Growing support for Donald Trump in majority-Latino cities like Reading could help him win Pa.

READING — After Sylvia Aviles finished her chicken soup at 4th & Penn St Restaurant on a recent Monday afternoon, she walked outside and ran into Erlan Dobronsky, who taught a financial literacy class she recently took at Alvernia University.

They stopped and chatted about the presidential election. Aviles, 71, said she felt demoralized by both parties, largely due to their mutual failure to reform immigration policy and legally bring in more immigrants who could boost the economy. Dobronsky, 54, supports Vice President Kamala Harris but agreed, saying too many people have “a misunderstanding that with immigration the country is going to go down.”

“But I’ll say this,” he added, “the border has to be protected.”

“Oh, yeah. I agree,” said Aviles, who, like Dobronsky, is a naturalized citizen. “I don’t agree that everyone who wants to come here should come in.”

“It has to be fair because some people wait a long, long time,” said Dobronsky, whose sister has been trying to emigrate from Ecuador for 15 years.

Aviles is originally from Mexico City. Dobronsky was born in Ecuador. The restaurant in downtown Reading was Dominican.

The diversity of the moment was typical of Reading, a postindustrial city that has become more than two-thirds Latino. That demographic shift hasn’t changed the city’s partisanship drastically, with Democrats maintaining dominance.

But an Inquirer analysis of 2020 election results reveals that former President Donald Trump made inroads with Latino voters in Reading and other small cities with growing Latino populations.

This year, the question is whether Trump can continue that trend, or if he already reached his high-water mark. How Pennsylvania’s Latino residents vote in November will be key in determining whether Trump or Harris wins Pennsylvania — and the White House.

President Joe Biden carried Reading with 72% of the vote in 2020. But Trump improved from his 2016 performance, when Hillary Clinton won 78%. In 42 of Reading’s 44 precincts, Donald Trump earned more votes than he did in 2016, according to an Inquirer analysis of election results. And in 38 precincts, Biden earned fewer votes than Clinton.

Reading isn’t alone. Latino populations have grown in the last three decades in a string of cities along the “222 corridor,” named for the stretch of U.S. 222 that includes Allentown, Hazleton, Reading, and Lancaster. In every one of those cities, the Republican vote grew in 2020.

The GOP’s potential with Latino voters in the Trump era also hinges on a central question: How can a party dedicated to the fortunes of one highly divisive man who insults immigrants also become more welcoming?

Republican Berks County Commissioner Michael Rivera said Trump can gain more ground among Latino voters but noted, “The messaging is important.”

“Going back to the economy, and a message of saying, you know what, everyone is important,” he said. “It’s not whether you’re white, you’re Black, you’re Hispanic. Everyone is important. Again, we’re a nation of immigrants. And I believe that message has to be a message of inclusivity.”

Aviles said she thinks some Latinos who support Trump are attracted to the way he projects wealth.

“It seems that they see the dollar sign on his face,” she said, “and because of that they think that they’re going to be better off with him than anybody else.”

Earlier this month, signs hung in the windows of one Reading house declaring, “Latinos for Trump” and “DISHONESTY or DEMENTIA?”

When the door opened, Rafaela Gomez emerged wearing a bright red dress printed with the iconic image of Trump raising his fist after surviving an assassination attempt in Butler, Pa.

Gomez, 44, was born in the Dominican Republican and works as a detailer for a car-rental company. She knows her enthusiasm for Trump makes her an outlier in the neighborhood — a Democratic state representative lives next door — but she wants to show it’s possible to be Latino and support the former president.

“I know that they view it the way my mom views it, like the Democrats are here to help the immigrants, and it’s really not [the case] because they make all the promises but they don’t comply,” she said. “It’s not right with the open borders because we have a lot of corrupt [people] coming into our country. And that’s the reason we have a border policy, so they can go through the right way like the way I did.”

It’s far from clear that Trump will be able to continue the momentum he gained with Latino voters in 2020. Gomez said she believes some Latinos secretly support Trump but don’t admit it, and she is hopeful he’ll win Pennsylvania.

But she said she hasn’t felt a groundswell of support for the former president in her neighborhood.

“I feel like I’m the only Trump supporter in Reading,” she said.

Reading Mayor Eddie Morán arrived at a groundbreaking ceremony last week seemingly determined to shake the hand of every attendee.

“Great turnout,” he murmured to himself between greeting residents. “Let me say, ‘Hi,’ to the rest of the individuals here.”

Morán, a Democrat, looked like a mayor out of central casting as he celebrated the renovation of a playground in his city’s underserved south side. But for Reading, Morán is anything but normal.

Born in Puerto Rico, Morán’s 2019 election made him the first Latino mayor in Reading’s history. Morán said his win and the election of other Latino officeholders have helped to engage voters.

“The Latino community votes on passion,” he said. “They vote on something that is meaningful to them.”

Growing voter turnout among Latinos who have emigrated primarily from the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Mexico, but also from Colombia, Ecuador, and other countries, has largely helped Democrats.

But Morán said he worries about whether the party will do enough to keep them in the fold. The issues he believes Latino voters are most concerned with are housing, economic development, and family-sustaining employment.

While Morán doesn’t believe the GOP’s message resonates with Latinos, he noted that the Trump campaign has opened an office in Reading ― in Morán’s former campaign office, coincidentally — and has volunteers knocking on doors.

“Don’t just take it for granted thinking that they’re going to come out and vote Democratic straight down the line,” Morán said. “I would be a little concerned with that.”

As he was speaking, four children ran up to the mayor and lobbied for some changes to the playground renovation plan.

“Can you build a water park?” one girl asked.

“You know, I’m not sure if that was in the plan,” he said, “but I’m definitely going to take that into consideration.”

Rivera, a Berks County commissioner, is one of the most prominent Latino Republicans in the Reading area. But after the 2020 election, the local GOP wanted him gone.

Rivera, who calls himself Dutch-a-rican because his father is Puerto Rican and his mother has Pennsylvania Dutch roots, refused to repeat Trump’s baseless claim that the election was stolen. He faced a more conservative primary opponent when he ran for reelection last year, but held onto his seat.

Local Democrats, meanwhile, also targeted Rivera for reasons having to do with the 2020 election. The GOP-controlled board of commissioners in the aftermath of the election declined a request from the state to share information about undated mail ballots that courts had recently ruled should not be counted, leading to accusations Rivera and other officials were working to undermine the vote.

“It was not a fun year last year,” Rivera said.

Despite Trump’s election denialism being at the root of Rivera’s troubles, the commissioner attended the opening of the campaign’s Reading office this year. It’s clear, he said, that the national GOP views the Latino vote as a major opportunity this year.

“The GOP saw the need and the importance of having an office here — one to reach out to the Latino community, to understand what the needs are of the community here, because each community is different,” Rivera said in an interview this month at the Trump campaign’s Reading office.

Asked if he thought Trump’s messaging this year was effective in reaching Latino voters, Rivera demurred.

“To be honest, I haven’t been following it much. I have been involved in what I have to get done in office,” he said, “so you know, I haven’t seen him much on TV, to be honest with you.”