Could Puerto Rico’s moment be over? Leaders split on how to keep island in limelight

Just days before his dramatic ousting on Aug. 2, former Puerto Rico governor Ricardo Rosselló signed a law, with little fanfare, to move up Puerto Rico’s Democratic presidential primary elections in 2020 from June to March.
It was one of his last actions before stepping down, a move that Rosselló believed could place the embattled island on the U.S. political map next year. While Puerto Ricans on the island can’t vote in the presidential election, they’ve had the right to vote in the primaries since 1979. And in the midst of a crowded field with 23 candidates, every delegate could prove crucial to win the nomination.
“This law intends to bring national attention to Puerto Rico, especially in the upcoming Democratic primaries,” Rosselló said when he signed the law. “Currently, the primary is to be held in June, which reduces the impact we may have. By making Puerto Rico an early voting state, candidates will be forced to pay attention to our needs.”
The law’s signing coincided with one of the most strained political moments in Puerto Rico’s history: the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of people throughout the island to call for the resignation of the embattled Rosselló. The protests that lasted nearly two weeks extended far beyond Puerto Rico, reaching diaspora communities large and small in places like Florida, New York, Washington D.C., and Texas.

But as people on the island feel normalcy returning, there is renewed disillusionment among Puerto Ricans on the island and in Florida that Democratic candidates are ignoring the territory’s struggles and have missed an opportunity to appeal to Puerto Rican voters. And they fear that the movement they hoped would fuel 2020 is quickly fading.
Miami-based progressive activist Frederick Vélez III Burgos, who is Puerto Rican, said he was shocked by how little attention was paid to the island during the two Democratic primary debates that have been held this year.
“C’mon, there’s 1.3 million of us in Florida... it’s now been two debates where they don’t even mention us,” he said. “In the middle of everyone celebrating how awesome Puerto Ricans are in being politically engaged ... they don’t even shout us out, except for [Julián] Castro again.”
Of the 23 current Democratic candidates, only five have a platform on Puerto Rico on their campaign websites.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren published a debt-relief plan for Puerto Rico, including the introduction of a failed bill in 2018 that could’ve allowed Puerto Rico to terminate its debt. Sen. Bernie Sanders also backs a type of debt-relief plan and the need to focus resources on rebuilding the island’s infrastructure in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.
Pete Buttigieg, who met with Puerto Ricans in Central Florida earlier this month, supports having Puerto Rico’s representation in the Electoral College and would back statehood if it were favored by most Puerto Ricans.
Julián Castro, who launched his campaign in Puerto Rico, has a statement on his website in Spanish calling for investment in the island’s educational system. Andrew Yang supports statehood.
“For every other candidate, Puerto Rico is an afterthought,” said Nicole Rodríguez, president of the Maurice A. Ferré Puerto Rican Democratic Club of Miami Dade and president of the Democratic Hispanic Caucus of Florida. “Where are the other ones?”

AN EARLY VOTING TERRITORY

While Puerto Ricans elect one non-voting representative in Congress, the island’s territorial status does not allow Puerto Ricans to have true representation in the U.S. government. To further complicate matters, neither the Republican nor the Democratic party participate in local elections on the island, so for many, the primary season every four years is their only chance to play red state/blue state politics.
But by voting so late in the primary season, political leaders worried that the island’s voice has been muted.
Charles Rodríguez, the chair of the Democratic party in Puerto Rico, said the new voting schedule should help amplify the island’s voice.

“Puerto Rico was holding its Democratic primary almost at the end of the cycle and we had no effective influence over the process,” he said. The new dates early in the season “give us additional strength, and because we represent the Hispanic community to a certain extent, the way we vote matters ... In addition, the candidates will have to come to Puerto Rico and fight for the votes.”
Currently, Puerto Rico will have 59 delegates at the National Democratic Convention, more than 24 other states and territories, but the math can change before the meeting.
Rodríguez said Democratic candidates have to move away from platitudes and offer real solutions for an island that is stuck in a recession, is seeing a declining population and is saddled with more than $70 billion in debt.
During the island’s last primary, between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in 2016, some 88,289 Puerto Ricans voted — but the turnout has been as much as 10 times higher in the 1980s.
Puerto Rico has some 2.2 million registered voters, and anyone willing to sign a paper identifying as a Democrat (even on election day) can vote in the primary.
Fernand Amandi, a Miami-based Democratic pollster, said Rosselló’s law will have an impact on the Democratic primary, calling it “the parting gift that Rosselló gave the Puerto Rican community.”
“Every one of these [23] candidates is in a desperate hunt for delegates,” Amandi said. “Every delegate that’s up for grabs is fair game.”
But Amandi maintained that whether or not candidates make Puerto Rico a priority in their campaigns, it was ultimately up to the Puerto Rican community to show up at the polls, both on the island and in Florida.
“When you consider the federal government response to Hurricane Maria, to the destitution of the governor of Puerto Rico, to this president’s targeting of the Latino community, if Puerto Ricans on the mainland are not engaged and ready to vote... then nothing will politicize them,” he said.

2018 FLASHBACK

Meanwhile, many Hispanic liberals in Florida are still reeling from a 2018 midterm election where the Puerto Rican vote, which has tended to lean Democratic in past elections, did not materialize for the party in the numbers that were widely expected.
An estimated 50,000 Puerto Ricans are thought to have settled in Florida after Hurricane Maria in 2017, mostly choosing Central Florida as their final destination.
In part, strategists and activists alike attribute the losses in the state to the aggressive push from Republicans like Sen. Rick Scott, who traveled to the island eight times as governor of Florida.
Despite having been a supporter of the policies of President Donald Trump, who is deeply unpopular in the Puerto Rican community, Scott’s campaign streamed paid advertisements on Puerto Rican television and deployed state resources in the aftermath of Maria.
It was a moment that Democrats didn’t seem to seize, activists say.
“When you lose Florida you can’t go back and blame the Puerto Ricans,” said Frances Colón, a Puerto Rican community leader in South Florida. “There was an unrealistic expectation that Puerto Ricans would arrive in Florida… and would deliver key races in Florida to the Democratic Party with no substantial coordinated strategy to reach these voters.”
The sentiment was echoed by Federico De Jesús, senior adviser to Power 4 Puerto Rico based in Washington D.C., who said the problem with the Puerto Rican vote was not one of turnout, but a lack of resources devoted to the issue.
He said “it wasn’t necessarily a low turnout, but Rick Scott did a better job of campaigning than [incumbent] Bill Nelson did ... Just because the Democrats didn’t get the results they wanted doesn’t mean they didn’t turn out."


BY BIANCA PADRÓ OCASIO AND 
JIM WYSS
Rico’s moment be over? Leaders split on how to keep island in limelight

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