Pro-statehood party leads Puerto Rico governor race with historic pro-independence party run

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Late last month, Puerto Rico's governor race looked like a double-digit blowout for the incumbent party.

But on Tuesday it turned out to be a closer, single-digit result — and a historic showing for a traditionally also-ran party — thanks in no small part to the ugly rhetoric about Puerto Rico at a Trump rally last week.

With a little more than 80% of the vote counted Tuesday night, Jenniffer González, Puerto Rico's non-voting representative in the U.S. Congress, was leading left-wing challenger Juan Dalmau by a 40% to 32% margin — after Dalmau had drawn neck-and-neck with her in the most recent voter poll.

In Puerto Rico, the U.S.’s largest Caribbean island territory, political parties aren’t divvied up as Republican or Democrat. They’re demarcated instead along pro-territory, pro-statehood and pro-independence lines — and the latter has traditionally run a distant third.

González, the candidate of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party (PNP), had been leading Dalmau by 20 points in voter polls in October.

But then came the vile comments about Puerto Rico — such as “a floating island of garbage” — from speakers at Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden campaign rally in New York on Oct. 27.

READ MORE: Republicans distance themselves from Puerto Rico insult at Trump’s rally

González, who is Puerto Rico’s non-voting representative in Congress, suddenly saw her lead in a new poll last week cut to two points — 31% to 29% for Dalmau, the candidate of the island’s Independence Party (PIP) and its pro-independence coalition.

(Running third was Jesús Manuel Ortiz of the Popular Democratic Party, or PDP, which favors the pro-territory, or commonwealth, status quo.)

The Trump campaign’s insults seemed to help unlock a store of pro-independence sentiment on the island. And it also appeared to stoke ill will toward the ruling PNP.

Alejandro Granadillo

/

AP

Juan Dalmau, Puerto Rico's Independence Party candidate for Governor, arrives to a polling station to vote in general elections in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024.

The party, which is more linked to the U.S. mainland’s political class in many voters’ eyes, has largely failed to solve a host of economic and infrastructural crises in Puerto Rico, especially chronic and widespread blackouts caused by a dilapidated power grid.

That resentment was especially strong among Puerto Rico’s younger voters — and gained strength this week when Puerto Rican reggaeton superstar Bad Bunny endorsed Dalmau.

As a result, even if González wins the gubernatorial election, Dalmau's surprising finish promises to alter Puerto Rico's political dynamic — perhaps transforming it from primarily statehood-vs.-commonwealth to statehood-vs.-independence.

"If Puerto Rico doesn't make some serious changes soon," one South Florida Puerto Rican community leader told WLRN Tuesday night, "Dalmau could actually win the governorship four years from now."

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