CNN
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Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny voiced his support for Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday, sharing on social media a clip of the vice president’s plans for the island, moments after a speaker made an offensive joke at Donald Trump’s rally in New York, sparking outrage.

The move comes as both the Harris and Trump campaigns have competed for the Puerto Rican vote, especially in battleground Pennsylvania, where about 500,000 Puerto Ricans live. Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, better known as Bad Bunny, shared the campaign fragment with his more than 45 million followers on Instagram.

“I will never forget what Donald Trump did and what he didn’t do when Puerto Rico needed a caring and competent leader,” Harris says in the video, which Bad Bunny reshared several times with an emphasis on Trump. “He left the island, tried to block aid after successive devastating hurricanes and offered nothing but paper towels and insults.”

Thousands of people in Puerto Rico died as a result of Hurricane Maria in 2017 – shortly after Hurricane Irma caused massive power outages across the island. As President Trump surveyed the damage in Puerto Rica after Hurricane Maria, he was criticized after throwing supplies, including paper towels, to the island’s residents.

Bad Bunny’s post on Sunday was the first indication of support from the artist as the Harris campaign tries to shore up celebrity support. And it came as outrage over comments by Tony Hinchcliffe, a comedian and podcast host, who stormed Puerto Rico during Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden.

“There’s a lot going on, I don’t know if you know this, but there’s literally a floating island of trash in the middle of the ocean right now. Yes. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” he said. Puerto Rico is a US territory.

According to a source familiar, Harris campaign officials had been in talks with Bad Bunny’s team in the hope that he would lend his support to the vice president’s plan for Puerto Rico.

“This has been a thoughtful and deliberate approach, focused on the issues,” the source said.

A representative for Bad Bunny told CNN that his repost of Harris’ video on Instagram was “not an endorsement,” but that he “supported” Harris. “Benito’s political focus has always been on Puerto Rico,” his representative told CNN. His representative did not indicate whether there would be a formal endorsement from the musician ahead of the election.

An endorsement from Bad Bunny has been at the top of the Harris campaign’s celebrity wish list for months, according to a source familiar with the campaign’s Hollywood reach. The campaign understands the broad reach Bad Bunny has within the Latino community and believes his support could help sway young male Latino voters — a demographic group that has gravitated toward Trump.

The campaign also celebrated Bad Bunny, along with Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin, who shared the vice president’s message on social media.

Earlier Sunday, Harris visited Freddy & Tony’s Restaurant, a Puerto Rican restaurant in north Philadelphia, where she spoke about Puerto Rico’s challenges and discussed its policies for the island.

“I will be creating an opportunity economy task force for Puerto Rico,” she said, adding that she wants to focus on two things: creating economic opportunities for the island and improving the electrical grid.

CNN’s Elizabeth Wagmeister and Max Rego contributed to this report.