At a sidewalk stand staffed by Donald Trump's allies, in a bustling Hispanic hub in the critical election state of Pennsylvania, a man seeking voter-registration papers describes the moment his political views shifted.

"La pandemia," says Jorge Lami, who plans to cast his first-ever ballot for Trump.

The pandemic. 

It comes up frequently in discussions about why Democrats risk losing Latino voters for the third straight election, with potentially game-changing electoral consequences.

Lami, a Dominican-born Uber driver, laments the economic pain of recent years, first with businesses shut down, then with inflation, which has just finally eased.

He lives in the majority-Latino city of Allentown, Pa. Democrats typically dominate here, yet on this day, many cars honk their horns and pedestrians sporadically offer thumbs-up as they pass the Trump stand. 

In a nearby county, Karen Acuna Bertolo reached the same conclusion, albeit earlier than Lami: She became a Trump supporter in 2020. 

A mother and business owner, she says her turning point came amid prolonged school shutdowns and destructive anti-police protests — she blamed Democrats for both.

"That's when it changed for me. I became Republican," said the Nicaraguan-born woman, who co-owns a refrigeration-products business with her husband near Philadelphia.

Latino Democrats have expressed concern and urged their party to strengthen its ground game in Pennsylvania, a state that could prove decisive in the presidential election.

The election may hinge on a crude equation: Will more working-class voters of colour shift to Trump than college-educated whites move away from him?

To be clear, Trump isn't expected to win most Latino voters: Polls do suggest he could keep gaining ground, and potentially even rival George W. Bush's two-decade-old Republican record of 44 per cent of Hispanic voters.

Everything hinges on the extent of the shift, according to one longtime political operative, author, and expert on Latino voters.

"Is it one or two points? That's surmountable [for Democrats]," said Mike Madrid.

"You can make up for that with Republican defections to Harris. If it's a four- or five-point shift and [Trump] starts to hit 38, 39, 40 percent — then it starts to get really difficult."

Why housing is a key issue for Latino voters

This election is over if Trump cracks 40 per cent, says a Republican organizing Latino voters in Pennsylvania. With that score, he said, Trump wins, according to organizer Jimmy Zumba, an agricultural scientist by training.

He's speaking in a Dominican-style buffet where stews that once cost $8.40 now cost, a few years later, $12.72. So despite wage growth being on a roll, and inflation being down and low unemployment, Zumba says it's no mystery what Republicans here are campaigning on.

"The economy No. 1, the economy No. 2, the economy No. 3," he says over a meal on the outskirts of Allentown, a city that's 54 percent Latino. 

Madrid agrees with this assessment of the main election issue. He disagrees sharply, however, with Zumba's politics. 

A third-generation Mexican American who spent decades strategizing for Republicans, Madrid left the party, horrified by its new leader, and co-founded the anti-Trump group Lincoln Project.

From his unique vantage point — once an opponent of Democrats, and now an ally — the party committed a grave error, over a period of years, fumbling its message to the country's fastest-growing ethnic group. 

According to the Pew Research Center, the number of people with Latin American heritage eligible to vote in U.S. presidential elections grew to 36.2 million this year, up almost four million from 2020.

Madrid said Latinos were treated for too long, incorrectly, like a special-interest group focused on immigration and the border, instead of who they are.

They are mostly born in the U.S. Compared to the American average, he said, they are disproportionately young, working class, upwardly mobile, climbing the economic ladder and — this part is key — optimistic about the country. 

Democrats familiar with their own party's history might hear similarities to the Irish and Italian Catholics who powered Franklin Roosevelt's 1930s-40s New Deal coalition.

So what matters to upwardly mobile, working-class people with an average age of 30? Housing, says Madrid. Housing is not only the portal to the American Dream, but also, Madrid notes, housing construction is a massive employer. 

Hence why high interest rates, and inflation, hit so hard in the post-pandemic period, Madrid said, affecting communities already struggling after COVID. 

"Unless you have a housing policy you're not speaking to the community," he said.

Harris saying the right things: strategist

Here he credits Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, praising her housing plan. While her proposed $25,000 down-payment grant for new homebuyers has been criticized as costly or ineffective, Madrid calls her entire plan a pitch-perfect message.

"She did this brilliantly," Madrid said. He's also heartened by her new, tougher stand on the border, which she finally visited.

There are visible signs of support for Harris in the throbbing hub of Pennsylvania's Latin community.

There are almost no political posters on Allentown's Seventh Street, a busy thoroughfare crammed with mom-and-pop shops, restaurants and offices  where Trump supporters are registering voters; the only two are for Harris.

A lawyer who put up a Harris sign said she personally registered five Democrats this week. After all, the neighbourhood may be trending away from Democrats, but it still voted, massively, with them in 2020. 

"I'm voting for Kamala. And so are my husband and children," said Nilsa Belizario, who owns a second-hand fine-dishware shop. 

"People say they don't know if she's good or bad — because she hasn't been given a chance. Trump has been given a chance — and we now know he's crazy."

A retired doctor shopping in the store said he once lived under a right-wing dictator, Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, and sees parallels in Trump's attempt to steal power in 2020.

It's a reminder of the diversity in these communities, a contrast to Miami's Cubans, and Venezuelans, who fled their homelands' leftist strongmen. 

Trump critics call him dictator-in-making

In a nearby shop, Dominican native Mauricio Almonte also draws the Trujillo comparison, saying his country knew tyranny — and the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack sent a chill down his spine. 

"We don't need Trump back," said Almonte, who has lived in Allentown for 23 years.

"He just proved [on Jan. 6] what I was thinking — that he wants to be the first United States dictator.… I think the United States is greater than that." 

Harris supporters acknowledge a vibe shift in the neighborhood. Belizario estimates the area is now evenly split — not ideal for Democrats, who won three-quarters of the vote here last time, which even then was down from 2016.

Republicans have built on a small, longstanding, base of Latino support across the country. It existed even in the leanest years against Barack Obama, when Latino support for Republicans bottomed out at 27 percent. 

Jorge Rodriguez is one of those longtime Republicans. Wearing a Puerto Rico baseball cap as he walked into a ballot-dropoff centre last week in Stroudsburg, Pa., he said he's had one political allegiance his whole life.

The retired corrections officer is conservative on myriad issues, including the border. His wife came here on a proper student visa, from the Philippines, and he can't accept the notion of people being granted asylum after they cross illegally into the U.S.

"A lot of Latinos are being asked if they're okay with this open-border situation. They're not," said Rodriguez, who was born in Brooklyn, and still has the accent. 

"If your first act of coming into this country is committing a crime, that's not a group I want to belong to. If you approve that, what's next? Is violent crime okay?"

'Trump is gonna win'

Another lifelong Republican said she's watched the party's tent grow. Lawyer Maria Montero also identified the pandemic as a turning point, when Latinos were hit worst by policies she blamed on Democrats: closed businesses, shuttered schools and inflation.

"That's when I noticed it," Montero said in a Colombian cafe in Easton, Pa. She recalled growing up admiring Ronald Reagan, and constantly debating her grandfather, a member of the carpenter's union who loathed him.

"I never in one million years would have believed we'd become the party of the working class. I love it," she said with a smile. 

Back on Seventh Street, in a notary shop, Daniela Gonzalez said she supported Barack Obama and Joe Biden in the past, yet voted for Trump in 2016 — and will do so again. So will many, maybe most, of her customers, she said.

She cites the economy. Not that she gets starry-eyed for Trump, describing his rhetoric as occasionally off-putting.

"But we need somebody like that," she said, adding a prediction.

"Trump is gonna win."