Biden isn’t the statehood backer many Puerto Ricans want. Will he lose Florida votes?
Cassandra Santiago, a hospitality worker who relocated from Puerto Rico to Central Florida two years ago, knows very little about Joe Biden. She knows that he’s a Democratic candidate for president. And she knows she’s not going to vote for the current president, Donald Trump.
But come Nov. 3 — as voters on the island cast ballots yet again on the issue of statehood for Puerto Rico — Santiago is clear about one thing: if she votes in the presidential election at all, it’ll be for the candidate most engaged on Puerto Rico.
“Right now, I feel like Joe Biden needs to have a campaign presence here because a lot of Latinos were looking forward to [Bernie] Sanders,” said Santiago, who moved to Kissimmee outside Orlando in 2018 after Hurricane Maria and is now furloughed from her job at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom.
That’s the choice many Puerto Ricans in Florida find themselves facing. Vote for a candidate who has failed to come out strongly in favor of statehood. Or vote for President Donald Trump, who they view as hostile to the whole idea. The only other option: stay home.
“If [Biden] is really interested, then he should talk more about our issues,” said Santiago, among the estimated 50,000 Puerto Ricans who became Florida residents after the storm, creating a sought-after demographic for both Democrats and Republicans in 2020. “If he talked about it, it would be the kind of thing that would make me think like, ‘Wow, so I do want to vote for Biden.’”
Puerto Rico’s new vote on the question of statehood is being led mostly by the island’s Republican resident commissioner, Jenniffer González, who says the effort could make new headway, based on conversations she has been having with the U.S. Department of Justice, which has to approve the language of the referendum.
There are signs the Biden campaign is trying to address the concerns. The campaign is planning to release a policy proposal on issues the island is facing, which likely won’t include any changes to his position on status, according to Puerto Rico Sen. Carmelo Rios, who is pro-statehood and co-chairs Biden’s campaign on the island.
That means that proponents of statehood — which remains a long shot even if the non-binding referendum passes — probably can’t rely on Biden to push for Puerto Rico to become the 51st state, if he becomes president. Biden has said that he believes in self determination for the island, a position that many Puerto Ricans in Florida see as an attempt to avoid weighing in on a divisive topic.
“I will engage Puerto Ricans — including representatives of every status option — in a process of self-determination, listening and developing federal legislation that outlines a fair path forward,” he wrote in an op-ed in the Orlando Sentinel on December 2019.
Democratic political analysts say that Biden’s “self-determination” position on statehood probably won’t hurt him with Florida Puerto Ricans who vote. Their bigger worry is that, in a community whose low voting turnout numbers relative to the size of the population have disappointed Democrats in the past, Biden’s failure to make Puerto Rico a focus of his campaign may keep even more of them away from the polls.
For those who do vote for Biden, “it will be more of a vote to punish Trump,” predicted Maria Revelles, director of Vamos 4 PR, a coalition of organizations that advocate for Puerto Rican issues on the island and in the diaspora.
Revelles, who lives in Orlando, said that if Biden wants to build more support, he should consider revisiting and even changing some laws passed during the Obama administration, like the 2016 PROMESA law that established a federally-appointed financial oversight board for the island’s cratering finances and whose early proposals to impose austerity measures are viewed with skepticism among Puerto Ricans.
Puerto Rico has trying to position itself to become more politically significant, notably when pro-statehood Puerto Rican Democrats moved up the U.S. territory’s 2020 presidential primary to March. But that effort was stymied when the coronavirus pandemic resulted in a number of states rescheduling primaries further into the spring. Combined with Biden’s rapid consolidation of support, the result was that Biden didn’t need to weigh in on the issue of statehood to win delegates.
That leaves Florida, one of the most sought-after prizes in the presidential election, as the probable last chance for Puerto Rican statehood to factor into the 2020 election. Hispanic-voting operatives in the state say Biden’s lack of a strong and supportive stand on statehood could whittle away some support from Puerto Rican voters.
“The Biden campaign can win votes and increase turnout among Puerto Ricans in Central Florida if he embraces statehood,” said Kenneth McClintock, a former Democratic National Committee member from Puerto Rico and former president of the Puerto Rican Senate. “It’s not a coincidence that some of the strongest state-hooders in Congress are [Central Florida] Congressman Darren Soto and Congresswoman Stephanie Murphy.”
Polls in recent years have shown that a majority of Puerto Ricans in Florida support statehood for the island. And in the last plebiscite, in 2017, nearly 97% of voter cast ballots in favor. But there’s a years-long debate among Puerto Ricans outside the island about whether U.S. political candidates should weigh in on the island’s status as a way to appeal to them. Puerto Ricans now account for a third of all Hispanic residents in Florida, virtually on par with the Cuban population.
Soto, who drafted a bill in 2019 with Democratic and Republican cosponsors that would grant Puerto Rico statehood, said a Biden-led White House is the only way statehood could become a possibility in the near future. He argued that a vote for Biden is the best way for Puerto Ricans who support statehood to make progress.
“Certainly, it will become a bigger issue for both party’s presidential candidates to have to address,” Soto said. “President Trump has made it clear he doesn’t support it. Vice President Biden has mentioned he will respect the will of the people.”
The vote in November will be the sixth time since 1967 that the island will cast ballots on its political status. The referendum is pegged to the island’s general election on Nov. 3. Puerto Ricans, who are U.S. citizens, don’t vote in presidential elections — unless they are living on the mainland.
But even if Puerto Ricans on the island vote yes, the referendum has little chance of becoming law. It must be approved by Congress. And its future was thrust into even more uncertainty when the White House issued a statement hours after Gov. Wanda Vázquez signed the bill saying that Puerto Rico must first worry about “getting their financial house in order.”
Florida’s senators, both Republicans, don’t seem to be on board, either. Florida Sen. Rick Scott has previously said — when he was still running for the Senate — that he backed statehood and thinks Puerto Ricans have a right to decide. And when he was the Florida governor, his early support for Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in 2017 earned him the backing of many of Central Florida’s island diaspora.
But last week, his spokesman, Chris Hartline, said in a statement that though he believes it’s up to Puerto Ricans to decide whether they should be a state, Puerto Rico should prioritize its billion-dollar debt crisis, echoing the Trump administration’s statement.
Sen. Marco Rubio also told Puerto Rican newspaper El Nuevo Día last week that “currently, the conditions to support that vote in the Senate don’t exist.”
Yet even in a political environment that lacks key support for Puerto Rico to become a state, the island’s resident commissioner, who is a Republican, is holding out hope. The language of the plebiscite for Puerto Rico, González argues, is the same that was used in the annexation of Hawaii in 1959. So González believes it wouldn’t be possible for federal officials to deny statehood to Puerto Rico if voters approved the measure.
She said she’s “not even minimally worried” about congressional opposition because she says no member has the standing to tell Puerto Ricans that they must remain in the “insulting” position of being a territory.
And she has said she’s in conversations with the DOJ, awaiting approval on the language of the referendum.
But the nature of those talks and whether Justice officials are sympathetic to the cause are still unclear. A DOJ spokesperson said nothing has been submitted for review by the Puerto Rican government.
If the Justice Department approves the referendum language, $2.5 million in federal funds will be spent to educate voters. The referendum’s outcome doesn’t compel Congress to do anything, but a sign-off from the Justice Department would be a victory for statehood supporters.
Some political analysts say it’s actually a good thing that Biden’s position leaves the debate open to the island’s residents.
“Obviously, it’s clear that the Trump administration is not interested in the topic,” said Federico De Jesús, a DC-based Democratic strategist and former spokesman for the Obama campaign. “Biden is an entirely different thing.”
De Jesús, who admitted he thinks the plebiscite is “a waste of resources and time,” said statehood won’t the deciding factor for most Puerto Ricans who vote in the presidential election.
“All Puerto Ricans, we think of Puerto Rico when we go vote,” De Jesús said. “But saying that that is the issue that tells you whether you’re voting for Biden or for Trump? I don’t think that’s the case.”
This story has been updated to include additional information on Sen. Rick Scott’s position on Puerto Rico’s political status.
This story was originally published June 5, 2020 at 7:00 AM.
