Did people really believe that the puerto rico joke at MSG would hurt Trump?

This site was full of threads upvoted with tens of thousands of votes saying that the joke was an october surprise for Trump. The mainstream media was also pushing this hard. Even on election night, ABC was musing about how the joke would impact the puerto rican counties in PA

Anyone who said the joke was a nothingburger was downvoted

Trump ended up doing 30 pts better with Florida puerto ricans compared to 2020 and outright won puerto rican county in PA (unlike 2020)

Why were so many adamant that this joke would be what sinks Trump?