Ny Safidinao

For Puerto Ricans, this is a significant position to take. The island is over $70 billion in debt and has defaulted on debt payments twice. As Puerto Rico Gov. Alejandro García Padilla told CNN , "We're out of cash." The tanking economy is causing a mass population exodus from the island to the mainland. Fewer Puerto Rican residents to pay taxes means more debt, and the whole crisis has been ominously referred to as a " death spiral ." If Puerto Rico gains statehood, it will be able to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy with federal protection, meaning the island could restructure its debts, negotiate in court with bondholders, and cover about a third of its debt . If not, Puerto Rico and its citizens will remain in the economic crisis indefinitely. A 115-year-old Supreme Court decision ( blasted by John Oliver last year ) ensures that no U.S. territories are allowed to vote in the general election. While Republicans in Puerto Rico voted clearly in favor of ...

Puerto Rico holds its Republican primary on March 6, 2016 and Democratic caucus on June 5. 67 delegates are at stake for the Democrats and 23 delegates for the Republicans. Election results are refreshed automatically every 30 seconds after polls close at 2:00 p.m. ET. There is no need to refresh the page to see the latest data. Mar. 6 * Vote Data compiled by the AP Puerto Rico Delegate Estimates Feb. 1 Iowa () Feb. 9 New Hampshire () Feb. 20 Nevada (D) South Carolina (R) Feb. 23 Nevada (R) Feb. 27 South Carolina (D) Mar. 1 Alabama () Alaska (R) American Samoa (D) Arkansas () Colorado (D) Georgia () Massachusetts () Minnesota () Oklahoma () Tennessee () Texas () Vermont () Virginia () Mar. 5 Kansas () Kentucky (R) Louisiana () Maine (R) Nebraska (D) Mar. 6 Maine (D) Puerto Rico (R) Democrats Total Votes % Delegates Democratic Results Not Yet Available Republicans Total Votes % Delegates (23) Rubio 27,485 ...

Senator Marco Rubio of Florida won the Puerto Rico primary on Sunday, giving him a much-needed victory after a string of losses that threatened to push the Republican presidential nomination further out of his reach. In Maine, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont won the Democratic caucuses on Sunday, according to The Associated Press. The victory in Puerto Rico came a day after Mr. Rubio was shut out of first-place finishes in all four of Saturday’s Republican nominating contests. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas won the caucuses in Kansas and Maine, and Donald J. Trump won the Kentucky caucuses and the Louisiana primary. The 23 delegates awarded to Mr. Rubio from Puerto Rico still leave him trailing far behind Mr. Cruz and Mr. Trump. Saturday’s results helped Mr. Cruz emerge as the main alternative for Republicans hoping to halt Mr. Trump’s momentum. Mr. Cruz has now beaten Mr. Trump, who holds the lead in delegates, in six states. Mr. Rubio’s lone previous victory came in the Minnesota caucu...

Puerto Ricoresidents may find themselves waiting longer than anticipated to vote during Sunday’s Republican Party presidential primary because of funding cuts triggered by the island’s financial crisis. The commonwealth will operate 110 polling stations, down from about 1,500 in 2012 when residents voted in local elections and the presidential primary on the same day, according to Liza Garcia Velez, president of Puerto Rico’s election commission. It may be the one way for territory residents, who aren’t eligible to vote in the November U.S. presidential election, to voice their displeasure as the commonwealth and its agencies struggle under a $70 billion debt load. Island officials are urging Congress to help Puerto Rico reduce those obligations by granting some form of restructuring powers. The island’s localities are unable to file for municipal bankruptcy, as Detroit did. “I wish we could have more, but we have to do it with that number,” said Zoraida Fonalledas, national commi...

Thousands of inmates lined up in prisons across Puerto Rico on Friday to cast early ballots in the U.S. territory’s Republican primary, some saying they hoped the elections can help lift the island out of an economic crisis. At least 6,500 of the island’s 11,500 prisoners are registered to vote, and government officials said this year’s turnout was strong. Even prisoners not registered are allowed to participate in the open primaries, which are held two days ahead of the vote for the general population. The island’s Republican primary is Sunday while Democrats vote in June. Some said they were prompted to vote by Puerto Rico’s decade-long economic woes and concerns for relatives who have left for the U.S. mainland, seeking jobs. “I wanted to take action this time,” said Omar Quintana, 37, a first-time voter who is serving a six-year sentence for robbery at Institution 1072 in Bayamon, just southwest of the capital of San Juan. “Maybe this will improve if we become a U.S. state.” ...

Puerto Rico is not a state. It has no electoral college votes for president, no senators, and no representatives. After the grind of the 2016 primary season and the fireworks of post-convention campaigning, November ballots in Puerto Rico will not feature the names of those running for America’s highest offices. However, as one of the most important financial and political crises in Puerto Rico’s recent history unfolds, it is still primed to make a statement in the presidential race. Like all other inhabited territories of the United States—Guam, the United States Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa—Puerto Rico is part of the primary process for both the Republican and Democratic parties. But unlike its fellow territories, which are comparatively tiny, Puerto Rico’s population of 3.7 million is roughly similar to Oklahoma’s. Puerto Rico’s size gives it real power in determining party nominees. It has more Republican delegates than Vermont and more Democrati...

The religious development coalition Jubilee USA is launching radio spots focused on Puerto Rico's debt crisis ahead of "Super Tuesday" presidential primary elections. The religious development coalition Jubilee USA is launching radio spots focused on Puerto Rico's debt crisis ahead of "Super Tuesday" presidential primary elections. The radio placements will air on 125 stations in the "make or break" state of Texas asking the presidential candidates to address the crisis in the US Territory. Puerto Rico's government is $72 billion in debt and closed 200 schools, cut health care and used pension funds to make debt payments. Puerto Rico's 3.5 million residents - nearly half of whom live in poverty - are US citizens and are eligible to vote in the US presidential primaries. The debt crisis helped push 10% of the island's population to leave for the US mainland over the past decade. Many of those citizens will vote in primaries on Super Tu...

  DES MOINES, Iowa — Hillary Clinton appeared to squeak past insurgent rival Sen. Bernie Sanders in Iowa’s presidential vote, according to results Tuesday, redeeming a crushing loss here in 2008 but revealing the shortcomings of a candidate who once seemed invincible. Results from Iowa’s Democratic Party, announcing 100 percent of the precincts counted, gave Clinton a whisker-thin margin: 49.8 percent to Sanders’s 49.6 percent — setting up what is likely to become a prolonged nominating contest. Under the state’s caucus system, delegates are assigned by percentage of the vote. The outcome from Monday’s caucuses was a relief for Clinton loyalists confronted in recent weeks with the wrenching possibility that Clinton’s second-chance candidacy, like her first, might falter out of the gate and never recover. It was also a shock to the system that a candidate universally known in Iowa, with deep pockets and long experience, could come close to losing to a relative unknown who wa...

The final GOP debate before the Feb. 1 Iowa caucus kicked off on Thursday night and immigration became a heavy focus. Immigration Flip Flop? Sponsored by Fox News and Google, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio was shown videos of previous statements about immigration reform, namely his stance on providing a pathway to legal status or citizenship for undocumented immigrants. In the clips, Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, spoke in opposition of a pathway to citizenship, or "amnesty." Rubio, who was a co-sponsor to the Senate's 2013 comprehensive immigration reform bill (S. 744) that included a pathway to citizenship, defended his platform as one who opposes amnesty. "I do not support blanket amnesty," he said. Rubio later said, "What I've always said is that this issue needs to be solved. They've been talking about this issue for 30 years and nothing ever happens," adding he will confront the issue by keeping the Islamic State militant group o...

During NBC’s two-hour Democratic presidential primary debate, only one candidate acknowledged Puerto Rico financial crisis, immigration and the Obama administration’s deportation raids: Martin O’Malley. What NBC Forgot: Immigration, Puerto Rico & Central America In response to moderator Lester Holt's last question of the two-hour debate on Sunday night, "Is there anything that you really wanted to say tonight that you haven't gotten a chance to say?" O'Malley took the next 60 seconds to acknowledge issues the Latino community is seeking action on from Congress and President Barack Obama. "There are so many issues that we haven't been able to discuss here. We have not fully discussed immigration reform and the deplorable number of immigrant detention camps that our nation is now maintaining. We haven't discussed the shameful treatment that the people of Puerto Rico, our fellow Americans, are being treated with by these hedge funds that are working...

In early September, Hillary Clinton and Marco Rubio campaigned in San Juan, the Puerto Rican capital, on the same day—a nod to the island's importance in the November presidential election, thanks to a surging population of Puerto Ricans in Florida, the mother of all swing states. But the two candidates came bearing very different visions for how the island territory should cope with its severe debt crisis. At a roundtable event, Clinton backed bankruptcy reforms that would spare the island from the worst ravages of austerity at the cost of profits for its Wall Street creditors. "You can't fix your economy through austerity," she said . At his own rally across the city, Rubio took Wall Street's side. The Associated Press reported that Rubio, speaking in Spanish, "railed against giving Puerto Rico bankruptcy protection." Rubio wasn't always a vocal opponent of bankruptcy protections for Puerto Rico. And his current stance is one that, should he beco...